Exercise, Life, & Love

By Stephen J. Almada

Although common sense tells us living longer is a good thing, these are not common times. Ours is a time of epidemics caused by the ways we learn to live life. It is not just cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancers that are the products of our lifestyle. Rates of suicide are increasing, propelled by ways of living that are making us unhappy, more depressed, and more anxious than previous generations. These lifestyle diseases are infecting children and tearing apart the fabric of society as evidenced by the rise of bullying, hazing, and corporate corruption. Exercise, Life, and Love is the book for our time because it is a book about how to live a life that is truly vital and meaningful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen J. Almada
• Release date: Sep 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393412915

Stephen J. Almada

Stephen J. Almada, Ed.D., is a health psychologist, epidemiologist, educator, and consultant. Exercise, Life, and Love is the product of more than 30-years of his combined practical experience and training as an epidemiologist. He has published articles in peer reviewed and professional journals, served as a health consultant for Chicago print and television news outlets and presented at scientific meetings, professional organizations, and corporations. As a practitioner, he gained insights into the factors underlying the all too human struggles with making good food choices, adopting regular exercise, and otherwise making not so healthy lifestyle choices. As an epidemiologist struggling to understand the cause of inactivity, obesity, and lifestyle diseases, three statements; “if you fail at love, you fail at life”, “you have to learn how to love before you can learn how to live” and “the only way to know life is live it”, launched his twelve year odyssey into the causes of these epidemics diseases and revealed how Exercise, Life, and Love are rooted in nature; how they are inseparably related to the care and prevention of diseased ways of living life, and essential to living, and thus knowing, a life that is truly vital, healthy, and happy. 

Book preview

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Exercise, Life, & Love

Exercise, Life, & Love:

The Making of a Sedentary Society

Stephen J. Almada

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

EXERCISE, LIFE, & LOVE

First edition. September 2, 2019.

Copyright © 2019 Stephen J. Almada.

ISBN: 978-1393412915

Written by Stephen J. Almada.

Dedication

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED to my parents, Ignacio R. and Emilia R. Almada.  They gave me the gifts of love, life, and exercise. 

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1  The Path to Powerlessness

Chapter 2  Towards a Philosophy of Nature

Chapter 3  Nature’s Laws and Principles of Homeokinetic Unity

Chapter 4  Life: The Systemization and Enhancement of Nature’s Forces

Chapter 5  Homeokinesis and Living Life

Chapter 6 The Making of Life’s Latest Enhancement

Chapter 7 The Environment and Our Receptors, Brain, and Mind

Chapter 8 From Receptors to Consciousness

Chapter 9 Consciousness, Chaos, and the Construction of Knowledge

Chapter 10 The Imperative of Feeling Whole and Alive

Chapter 11Economics & Consumerism

Chapter 12 Exercise: Repossessing Mind and Body

Endnotes

Acknowledgements

THIS BOOK WOULD HAVE never been written without the support, encouragement, and accountability of family, colleagues, and friends.  My family was a pillar of support throughout this entire endeavor.  In addition to my parents, my sisters Jan and Cyndi, and brother Mike, I am especially indebted to my brothers Robert and Richard as well as my sister Gloria who when times were tough helped me to keep my focus and persevere.  I have also had the good fortune of a son, Derek and two grandsons, DJ and Hunter, whose love and support continue to give me inspiration, hope for the future, and fill me with joy every day. 

I am exceedingly grateful to colleague and friend Dr. Laura Van Puymbrouck for her unyielding support, countless conversations and discussions, and her critical assessments of ideas put forth in this book.  I owe her a great deal of thanks for the many articles, books, and other resources she brought to my attention all while she was under the stress of being a wife, mother of three children, community organizer, and completing her doctoral work. Finally, although there were times I never thought I would, I always knew I would be very grateful for the unrelenting pressure she would put on me to complete Exercise, Life, and Love. 

I am indebted to Dr. Martha Daviglus for her enduring friendship, insights, and many conversations pertaining to Exercise, Life, and Love, as well as other epidemiologic topics.  There is also the gratitude I owe to Dr. Merilyn Salomon for her insights and indulging me in so many conversations and discussions regarding various topics in this book.  Dr. Salomon is another one who, in spite of her busy schedule, would find time to send me articles and recommend books that proved to be very helpful in writing Exercise, Life, and Love. 

There are so many others who have made up a network of support without which a project like this would have been painfully lonesome.  My many thanks are owed to Mr. Richard Casolari, Ms. Alexandra Salomon, her father Mr. Larry Salomon, Mr. John Albrecht, Mr. Michael Graff, Ms. Jodi Darrow, Ms. Suzanne Regas, and Ms. Pat Alberding for their friendship and support.  I am also very grateful for the support of my good friend Mr. Brad Tarpley who took the time to review some of the chapters.  He provided me with valuable criticism and suggestions that certainly improved the overall quality of the whole book.  Ms. Lisa Dobie is another friend and colleague to whom I owe many thanks.  She has been a pillar of support and help to me, especially on the technological front.

Coping with the stress of a project like this book required an oasis; a source of relief and joy.  I owe a debt of gratitude Dr. Gina Panozzo without whom I would have never discovered the joy of dancing, Ms. Maricza Valentine, all of her instructors at Latin Rhythms Academy of Dance, and my mentor in dance and good friend Mr. Rey Sanchez. 

My gratitude to Drs. Jeremy Stamler, Allan Dyer, and Richard Shekelle for the valuable mentoring and opportunities they provided me as a post-doctoral fellow in epidemiology.  It was while under their guidance much of the groundwork for this book was set down.  There is also a shamefully long overdue debt of gratitude that must go out to Drs. Ned Alger, Barbara Goza, and Chuck Gregg.  Although the mentoring and guidance they provided me was long ago it continues to give me direction in all of my professional pursuits.  I am also indebted to Dr. Barry Schultz.  As a mentor, he was a good one because he demanded much of me.  However, as much as I truly value all that he demanded, it is second only to the lesson I learned from the plaque hanging in his office which read: if you don’t have the time to do it right, where will you find the time to do it again. 

Last, there is the enormous debt of gratitude I owe to Dr. Keith Henschen.  Much of this book can be directly attributed to the faith Dr. Henschen had in me, allowing me to explore and discover the works of the economist Dr. Frank Knight; Dr. Heinz Kohout, the father of Self psychology; the biologists Drs. Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, the cardiologist Dr. George Mann, the psychologist Dr. Donald Meichenbaum, and many other sources that have been indispensable not only in terms of writing this book but also in my professional experience applying the stress management program I developed under Dr. Henschen’s supervision. 

Introduction

OURS IS A TIME IN WHICH the forces of inactivity have overcome more than two-thirds of our population.  It is an age in which we are taught to be happy is to be a consumer, to be human is to be sick, and to be sick is to be personally irresponsible, and, or genetically unlucky.  Although we are surrounded by ideals of happiness, beauty, and power, more of us are depressed, anxious, dissatisfied with Life, and led to believe there is nothing we can do about our diseased human condition.  We are witnessing a time of divisiveness; a time in which we are individually and socially tearing apart all that holds us together. 

Nothing magnifies the decline of our society more than the incompetence and indifference of our social leaders.  Shamefully, they have failed to develop policies and enact measures to slow down, not to mention prevent, the accelerating rate of chronic lifestyle diseases.  Since the middle of the 1950s, a growing number of our social leaders have opted to sit on the sidelines and just watch as the wealth of this nation (i.e., the health of its people) crumbles under the weight of increased rates of Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and other chronic diseases.  Nothing magnifies the egregiousness of our socially irresponsible leadership than the fact that these, once upon a time, afflictions of adulthood have now become diseases of childhood, adolescence and young adulthood. 

Oddly, while we are being consumed by lifestyle diseases, the value of regular exercise has never been so well documented.  Not just in terms of preventing and taking the edge off chronic diseases but also as the harbinger of happiness and feeling good.  Here is the irony of our time; although almost everyone knows the health benefits of exercise, two-thirds of our population remains sedentary.  Similarly, almost everyone who is overweight or obese knows what they shouldn’t eat, and just about everybody who smokes knows it’s not good for them.  Clearly, many of the ways we live our lives have nothing to do with rational clear thinking.  Yet, our diseased ways of living life are all learned behaviors.

We are not inherently lazy, or lacking in self-control, or prone to making bad choices. We live in an environment built to teach us how to be indifferent; to believe we have no control over our lives; and to blame nature, each other and ourselves, for learning such dissatisfying and diseased ways living life.  Built by the self-interest of socially irresponsible leadership, the social environment in which we learn how to live cultivates a consciousness of indifference for the well-being of society and its citizens.  Built into our environment, this consciousness and the indifference it breeds, is spreading throughout society, infecting the minds of more and more of citizens. 

Our epidemics of inactivity, obesity, and lifestyle diseases cannot be blamed on irresponsible individuals and parents.  Like the spread of cancer, diseased ways of living life are symptomatic of the indifference radiating from the social institutions that are the center of our society.  The epidemics of inactivity and obesity represent the failure of our social leaders to fulfill their responsibility to enact measures that will protect and promote the well-being of every child, woman, and man, and thus facilitate the wholeness, wealth, health, and happiness of society. 

If you fail at love, you fail at life!  I was a freshman in college when I heard the psychologist Dr. Murray Banks make this statement.  After picking myself up off the ground, I was astonished by how hard these words hit me and the scope of their implications.  Whatever else we do in life, our success depends on how well we succeed in love.  It would keep me up at night.  It was in the dark of night when it dawned on me; if Dr. Banks is right then an amoeba, a cat, a tree, and every other living system must be succeeding in love.  There I was in the darkness pondering "what do they know that I don’t? 

Although we all, more or less, know we’re alive, biologist cannot quite come up with a good definition of what life is.  Likewise, we all profess love, long for love, and sometimes swear we are in love, but when confronted with having to precisely define what is we are professing, longing for, and swearing by, love becomes an inexplicable, amorphous chimera.  This creates quite a problem; how are we to succeed at one unknown (life) when the criterion for its success is another unknown (love)? 

We can all count the ways we casually express our love for ice cream, jewelry, a new car, smart phone, or a beautiful sunrise.  At the very least, it is good feeling these things bring to us, maybe even a momentary feeling of being alive.  However, throughout history, bards have suggested love appears to be both, a cohesive force, holding things, people, and life together, and an action-initiating force, launching a thousand ships, causing revolutions, wars, and other daring acts which, ironically puts the very thing it holds together, that other ill-defined phenomenon we call life, at risk.  Do you too see the madness here? Apparently we are willing to risk life because we love the feeling of being alive. It begs the question; what is it about the feeling of being alive that makes us so bold as to risk life for love? 

We get the impression that the good feelings we associate with love involve a little more than the taste of ice cream, the possession of jewelry, new cars, or even watching a beautiful sunrise.  We get the sense that there is something bigger going on here; some sort of a relationship is being built in which life, or at least the feeling of being alive, is exchanged, back and forth, between us and the thing or person that makes us feel alive.  It is as though the power of feeling alive compels to give back the same, if not more, of those feelings.  We can’t help but construct a system of exchanging life for life and be committed to our relationship with whomever and whatever makes us experience those feelings.  Moreover, (this is where it gets really crazy) our commitment to this relationship binds us to the person or thing that makes us feel alive in such a way that we can’t live without that special someone or thing.  We have become an inseparable unity, the whole of which is greater than the sum of one plus one.  Consequently, our relationship grows into being something more than just about feeling alive.  We develop a keen sense our relationship has taken on a life of its own and it is a better life because the work and risks of loving is better than living alone.  The wholeness and aliveness we gain is the product of the love and life relationships we build with all that are committed to and caring about giving us life. Our commitment to and caring about combines to become our semper fidelis; causing us to be disciplined, make sacrifices, and even risk life for the person or thing with whom our wholeness and aliveness now depends. 

Whatever our notion of love may be, it appears to be built on the foundation of caring and commitment.  Any builder will tell you how important a solid foundation is to the construction of a house or high rise and all it must endure over time.  From the external stress of the four seasons to the internal chaos that transforms a house into a home for the family, a flimsy foundation and everything crumbles under stress.  However, once a solid foundation is set, the same care and commitment that went into building it must now go into the construction of the house.  Specialists of all kinds are needed to come together and work together to build a house; carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and other highly trained and educated professionals.  If the skills of specialists are lacking, than the best foundation known to mankind will not protect the house from the inefficiencies that will inevitably show up; e.g., leaky roofs and cold air blowing through the house during the winter.  Building a life worth living requires the same solid foundation of caring and commitment and the same coming together of specialists like educators, public health professionals, business leaders and policy makers. 

Whether it is building a house or a life worth living, a solid foundation is an absolute necessity but it is just the beginning; there is much more work to be done.  Any tradesman will tell you, you have to learn the skills of your trade before you can learn how to build a house; Dr. Harry Harlow tells us we have to learn how to love before we can learn how to live.  If for whatever reason, the foundation of caring and commitment are not established, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for any child or adult to get a good learning how to love education.  Similarly, parents can lay down a solid loving foundation for their newborn child but if society and its specialists are not committed to and don’t care about the well-being of families in general, and children in particular, than the parental foundation of love is going to come under stress and the wholeness of society will start falling apart. 

A common theme running through the works of Plato, Aristotle, and many of the ancient Greek philosophers that preceded them, is the observation that motion holds everything together.  If motion holds everything together, including us and our life, than motion and love must have something in common.  This suggests that not just any motion will do when it comes succeeding in love and life.  Indeed, the ancient Greeks saw the whole of nature, and the formation of every unity that grows, develops, and evolves in nature as the product of striving and strife between opposing and opposite forces.  Exercise is striving and strife; it is the interactions of opposing and opposite forces, and it makes us whole and alive.

Forces are the stuff of physics.  Physicists tell us nature’s strongest forces are those that hold things together, like the nucleus of an atom, an electromagnetic field, and the gravity that keeps us our feet on the ground and connected to this planet.  They also tell us about dark matter and the cosmic webs they form; about hidden variables that influence the behavior of electrons and other quantum particles; and they tell us about the reciprocal relationships associated with nature’s strongest forces. 

During one of my sleepless nights, I was thinking about how it is that love holds opposing and opposite forces together, when the question what force of nature brings them together in the first place? occurred to me.  It made me wonder about the nature of love; i.e., is love like Newton’s forces and Einstein’s energy, a phenomenon of motion with a mass equivalence?  Holding opposing and opposite force together certainly suggests love is another one of nature’s strong forces or binding energy.  The phenomena of exercise make us stronger than the opposing and opposite forces within and around us.  Is exercise a product of our caring about and commitment to our life; does exercise make us a better lover? 

Quantum physicists tell us there are hidden variables influencing the behavior of electrons and other quantum particles.  Are caring and commitment the underlying variables operating at both a conscious and subconscious level to influence our individual conduct and the relationships we build with others?  If so, what happens if caring and commitment are removed from individual and social consciousness?  Does everything fall apart?

With these questions festering in my mind, I began a twelve year journey to understand how life, love, and exercise were connected.  As a health psychologist and epidemiologist, I was intrigued by the possibility that our time of divisiveness; wide spread diseases caused by the ways we learn to live life, could be understood by trying to answer the question asked by the ancient Greeks: how do things make themselves whole in nature?  After all, if many of the same quantum particles of matter, and the oldest of atoms; hydrogen, oxygen, carbon have somehow come together, combining in this and that way, to make something more of themselves; e.g., fire, water, gases, minerals, plants, animals, and all of us, than maybe our epidemics of inactivity, obesity, and lifestyle diseases represent an error in our thinking.  Maybe we should be focused on obeying nature rather than conquering her. 

What follows in this book are the insights from my 12 year odyssey.  In the first chapter, the loss of our power to will is at the heart of our epidemic of inactivity.  It is not that people don’t have will power, but rather our power is being taken away from us.  From a historical perspective I show how social forces have been building up for more than a century, methodically diminishing the will power of individuals and the social institutions citizens rely on for education and public health.  Reviewing the history of our modern science of anti-aging/enhancement medicine I show how inactivity has been ingrained into our consciousness as it constantly reminds us how flawed our bodies, cells, and genes are.  I show how anti-aging medicine naturally fits with an economy built to profit from the promise of happiness by constantly reminding us how unhappy we are; how we will never be thin enough, young enough, sexy enough, or rich enough.  Against this historical background I show how our environment has been built to cultivate a consciousness of inactivity, unhappiness, and powerlessness, coupled with the belief that our only salvation is genetic engineering, stem cell research, pharmaceutical prescription drugs, surgery, supplements, hormone replacement therapy, monetary wealth and material possessions. 

The second chapter I turn to nature for clues that might reveal the physics of love from the physics of motion.  I am particularly focused on how exercise and love not only hold every unity formed in nature together, but also contribute to their growth, development, and evolution.  Following Newton’s instructions, my quest to understand the phenomena of motion took me down a path that started with chaotic forces and energy, and then led me to the phenomena of work and power, and then the systemization of chaotic forces.  I reasoned that if chaotic forces can be systematized into the purposeful work of things like keeping our galaxy going or plants growing, then the formation of knowledge must emerge with any systemization in nature.  This makes knowledge a phenomenon of motion but the details of how chaos becomes knowledge became the new source of sleepless nights. 

Applying the physicists’ concepts of lines, fields, and centers of forces, gave me the mechanisms for how chaotic forces could be transported and converge upon the center (e.g., a black hole) of a unity (e.g., a galaxy) formed in nature, and a become transformed into the power of knowledge. I reasoned that if every unity formed in nature transforms chaos into systematized knowledge, than the mind is a phenomenon of motion and unity in nature.  I propose the mind is something akin, if not identical, to the Higg’s Field of physics.

Finally, the central convergence and transformation of chaotic phenomena is one thing, but it raised another question: how does the power of knowledge maintain systemization.  This led me down another line of reasoning.  The center of chaotic convergence and transformation to knowledge must also be the center from which the power of knowledge is exerted, initiating the necessary and sufficient system wide activity that maintains unity in nature.  This description of a center of convergence, transformation, and divergence of forces and power in nature has an uncanny resemblance to what the father of self psychology called the self.  This suggests there is a psychology of nature which is the self; the epicenter of every unity formed in nature, including nature. 

The scaling of energy and forces into higher order phenomena of motion (i.e., systematized work, knowledge, mind and self) led me to ponder the conditions necessary for nature’s phenomena of motion to become something more than just a force or energy.  As opposed to disintegrative and repulsive interactions, integrative interactions necessarily result in the formation of what physicists have called a homeokinetic unity.  A unity of systematized work performed within its contained space struck me as the necessary condition of the scaling phenomenon underlying everything that grows, develops and evolves in nature.  I was intrigued by the possibility that love as we know it is a scaling phenomenon of nature’s integrative interactions. Accordingly I conjectured the innate force of matter to resist disintegration combined with the whole of multiple particles of matter and the integrative interactions of their opposing and opposite forces are scaled up to become an assertive integrative force exerted by the unity.  It astonished me how this integrative force could not only hold the unity together but enhanced the individual particles of matter and their interactions with one another.  Rather than being isolated individual particles of matter their participation in integrative interactions transformed them into coordinates committed to working together so as to maintain their unity in nature’s space. 

Nature’s laws and principles of homeokinetic unity are presented in chapter three.  In laying out these laws and principles of nature, I knew they had to apply to every homeokinetic unity formed in nature including galaxies, star systems, amoebas, cats trees, the person reading this right now; our families, businesses, communities, and societies.  Implicit to these laws of nature, the relationship between the phenomena of motion and love emerges as a necessary condition to construction, maintenance, and enhancement of a homeokinetic unity. 

The first law of homeokinetic unity, the law of synergy requires the commitment among all coordinates to work together to form a unity that is greater than their sum.  I propose the successful application of this law of synergy depends on interactions guided by the principle of reciprocity; i.e., all coordinates reciprocally exchanging the energy, forces, and power vital to performing the work of their integrative interactions and thus their unity.  I further propose the successful application of the law of synergy and its principle of reciprocity is a necessary condition of effectively applying the second law of homeokinetic unity, the law of symmetry. 

Every homeokinetic unity must have the capacity to equilibrate, or create a ratio of energy, forces, and power that is optimal for maintaining its homeokinetic unity under variable conditions.  This led me to the following realization; nowhere in nature can one force or one power regulate itself.  Successfully applying the law of symmetry requires sensitivity to excessive imbalances within a system of opposing and opposite forces of varying scope and magnitude and an equilibrating power capable of bring about the right measure of the right combination of forces, at the right time, and under the right conditions. 

Making these equilibrations the coordinates of a homeokinetic unity are guided by nature’s principle of efficiency in performing their work utilizing and exchanging vital matter.  I assert that the failure to apply these laws and principles will produce inefficiency, strain, chaos, and eventually disintegration of a unity.  In contrast, I propose the applications of nature’s laws and principles are essential to the growth, development, and evolution of homeokinetic unities.  In essence, nature’s laws and principles not only assure the maintenance of homeokinetic unities, but they demand their enhancement. 

In chapter four I explore the question what is life from a recursive perspective.  I work from the following propositions: First, life can only be known by the phenomenon of work that goes into living it.  Second, the work of living life perpetuates the same kind of life we learn to live and thus come to know.  I contrast this recursive perspective with a linear perspective of life, examining how a linear beginning and end perspective of life makes survival or longevity the measures of success in life.  I also consider how this linear perspective has created a vertical hierarchy comprised of subordinates and superiors and how it influences the relationships we build with our body and other individuals; as well as the way we live life and thus come to know it. 

From the phenomena of motion perspective, life emerges as the enhancement of nature, bringing the multiplicity of her chaotic forces together.  Life strives to establish integrative interactions from which the scaling the energy, forces, and power of nature’s opposing and opposite chaotic forces to give rise to better, more efficient ways of maintaining and enhancing life.  Although living systems come and go, I propose the unity of Life goes on because the phenomena of energy, forces, power and enhancement work of Life has never ceased.  Understanding Life as the enhancement of Nature, and enhancement (versus survival) as the imperative of Life, I argue life breeds the enhancement of Life and thus our presence is not some random or chance event.  We are the product of life’s imperative; we are life’s latest enhancement and life necessarily expects much from us in terms of keeping its enhancement streak alive and not ending up another one of its dead-end extinct species.

In chapters five I work from nature’s laws and principles and her phenomena of motion to show how we are a continuation of ancient homeokinesis and the product of countless cosmic and biological living systems striving to fulfill Life’s enhancement imperative.  In chapter five I show how structural stability and functional coherence is a necessary condition for growth, development and evolution.  We are riding the way of stability and coherence provided by the homeokinesis of countless cosmic and biological established over eons of time. I propose the development of our homeokinesis (i.e., the way we learn to live life) as individuals is a three stage process.  The first being the incipient stage that develops in the womb and is based on all of the ancient knowledge that has gone into our emergence. 

The second stage is the healthy narcissistic stage of development and the third is the altruistic stage of development.  As with all stage theories, success at lower stages is essential to the progression to the next level of development.  Moreover, I assert it takes an adult who has successfully progressed to the altruistic to guide the development of a narcissistic child into the stage of adult altruism.

In chapters six I propose life has always created specialists among its living systems to assure its enhancement imperative is met and we are no exception. As life latest enhancement, we are the product of numerous biological specialists and thus I propose our potential to become specialists like carpenters, scientists, electricians, educators, home makers and policy makers is unlimited.  However, I further argue the value of specialists is measured by how they use their specialized knowledge and power to build families, communities, society; i.e., how much they give back to all of life.  I also discuss how social mechanisms can result in the developmental failure of a healthy narcissistic child and instead produce a pathologically narcissistic adult.

Building on life’s development of specialists, in chapters seven through 9 I show how each of us as a self, uses our environment, body, brain and mind to formulate the power of knowledge and use its power to initiate the activities of living life.  Beginning with chapter seven, I emphasize how interactions with the environment have been instrumental in the evolution of our highly specialized and refined sensory organs, highly complex brain, sophisticated mind, and self.  I note that all of these structures, from sensory organs to the self, are not fully developed at birth. Like their evolution, their development depends on interactions with the environment.  Of particular importance here is the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) of the brain which I suggest is the specialists used by the self to mediate interactions between our emotional brain and our cognitive mind.  Here I note that the development of the highly specialized neurons of the ACC, connecting it to the cerebral cortex and thus influencing its executive functioning, is not just dependent upon interactions with the environment but the experience; i.e., the effort that goes into them, the risks associated with them, and the outcomes of the interactions.  I draw on neurological research to support the contention that childhood experiences largely determine the healthy or pathological development of a child’s ACC. 

Chapters eight I describe how consciousness emerges from the vast array of varying forces being transmitted from all of our sensory organs to the self via its brain. Specifically, I describe the mechanisms and pathways by which the self, performing and refining its operations of distinction and relevance, sorts through all of the sensory forces converging upon its brain, gives rise to the development of consciousness as a means of selectively focusing on those sensations that have the greatest relevance for maintaining and enhancing the feeling of being whole and alive. Of particular importance, is the emergence of the self, its operations of distinction and relevance, and the development of consciousness, is the product of work and thus consume the excess energy of our body’s coordinates.  This is what I call the vital reserve of energy and I link it to the build-up of energy reserves that come with exercise training. 

Moreover, I describe the functioning of consciousness as being similar to that of the autonomic nervous system.  Whereas the autonomic nervous system regulates and directs blood flow to tissues that are working at a higher intensity and diminishes blood flow to non-working tissues, consciousness directs the flow of energy to the self and its mind as it strives to make something out of the phenomena that has the greatest relevance and thus entered into the Higg’s Field of the mind. 

In chapter nine I describe how consciousness completes the construction of knowledge process.  Beginning with the transmission of forces from our receptors to our brain, to the conscious operations of distinction and relevance, the construction of knowledge is completed in the Higg’s Field of our mind.  Throughout our knowledge formulating process, I emphasize the instrumental cause and effect role the environment has on action-initiating knowledge and the subsequent experiential knowledge.  At the causal end, the environment must be rich in tantalizing chaotic unknowns, the scope and magnitude of which must be sufficient to stimulate our receptors.  As the effect, the power of our newly formulated knowledge must initiate interactions with environmental phenomena.  From our efforts; the strife and striving as we interact with our environment forces, emerges the experiential knowledge of our self as a meaningful or meaningless force in this world of forces.  Thus, I argue from sensory organs to consciousness; from action-initiating to experiential knowledge, the role of the environment is no small thing when it comes to learning how to live life.  I propose if there is an epidemic of inactivity and lifestyle diseases, and these are learned ways of living life, then their cause must be built into the social consciousness that permeates our environment. 

Before moving on to examine how our environment is built to teach diseased ways of living life, I describe how striving and learning to live life is governed by the enhancement (versus survival) imperative of life.  In chapter 10 I discuss how our enhancement of life is based on the feelings of being whole and alive that are the product of our striving; the depths of our efforts maintain and enhance the biological, social, earthly and cosmic unity of life as we know it.  I emphasize the perils of never learning how to make our self whole; the tragedy of never knowing the density of experiences; the feeling of being overwhelmed by the whole of life, from biological to the most remote corners of the universe, is contained within us.  I also discuss the pathological consequences of learning how to produce counterfeit feelings of being whole and alive. 

In chapter 11 I propose our economy is at the root of our epidemics of inactivity, obesity, and all of the lifestyle diseases.  I am specifically referring to the neo-liberal brand of economic thinking with its self-interest and laissez-faire imperative.  Inherently narcissistic, the individual and social pathological consequences of neoliberal economics permeate the environment they have built and in which we learn and live life. I show how within the unity of our systematized society, economic power is used to acquire more economic power and thus take power away from citizens, young and old.  One of the consequences of this growing imbalance of power is the transformation of our society from a unity of coordinates to a unity of economic subordinates.  Another is the construction of our environment designed to sensually arouse us and consciously cultivate the belief that our happiness is a function of consumerism.  As subordinates to the economy, I argue we are no longer citizens responsible for contributing to the whole of society but rather we are consumers subordinated to maintaining the life of an economy that depends on consumer activity.  I discuss how the happiness promised by our economy is primarily, if not strictly, based on fantasies, false promises, and ideals that don’t exist.  I assert that the pervasiveness and strategic marketing of consumerism throughout our environment necessarily crowds out of our environment and consciousness other ways of learning how to make us whole, alive, and happy.  Moreover, I maintain the effectiveness of marketing is the consumer placebo effect it produces.  Like a medical placebo, the first thing needed to induce a consumer placebo effect is pain and marketers have become specialists at subtly using the pain of social comparison to make the fantasies and false promises of consumerism more compelling. 

I also draw attention to common ground shared by psychopaths, pedophiles and kids marketers. In particular, I note how all of them know they can’t exploit a child without first securing the naïve and inexperienced child’s trust.  They all know the appearance of caring makes a good smoke screen for their cold-blooded indifference toward the child.  All of them claim they are empowering the child rather than overpowering, oppressing, and destroying the life of the child. 

In addition, I refute the blame marketers and the economy place on the parents.  No parents have the power to overcome all of the economic power being used to influence their child.  Specifically, I note how economic power allows it to be everywhere, in and around schools and on every screen seen by any child; no parents have the economic power to hire teams of child psychologist to help them influence and control their child’s activity; no parent can get to their child’s friends to help persuade him to act in a certain way. 

From the above perspective, I connect the accelerating rate of morbidity throughout childhood, adolescence and young adulthood directly to the prevalence of our consumer education.  I include among these disorders the rise of depression, anxiety, and suicides among the young and, as their common denominator, the sense of having no control over events; i.e., the sense of powerlessness. 

Chapter 12 begins with how the essence of our wholeness is the commitment to and caring about the body of coordinates that is the we are of opposing and opposite chaotic forces, from which therefore each of us becomes the I am we call our self.  I maintain the essence of our sumus ergo sum wholeness obligates us to continue the work of maintaining and enhancing the unity of our life that began with our conception in the womb.  Exercise education and the density of the exercise experience produces feelings of being whole and alive and thereby provide us with the means of achieving health and happiness over our lifetime. 

I also emphasize how exercise is a continuation of the vital role activity and its phenomena of motion have had on the development of our body, brain, and mind as a unity in space, continuum in time, and meaningful force in this world of forces. Furthermore, I reason exercise is an evolved way of enhancing, and thus maintaining our lives.  I note how prior to the emergence of us, (life’s latest enhancement), all enhancements were the product of random, chance, stressful, life threatening events.  Thus I propose the scope and magnitude of our evolved power to imagine a better life and the will power to pursue it, have exponentially increased our enhancement potential.  Exercise liberates us from being solely dependent of random catastrophic events.  It allows us to produce the right measure of stress needed to enhance our lives.  I discuss the implications this enhancement potential has for us in terms of exercise education early in life.  In particular I emphasize the importance of exercise in terms of normalizing the stress response, developing coping skills, and fulfilling our obligation to life’s enhancement imperative. I propose the return of exercise to the center of every school and center of our society, is going to take a collective effort.

Finally, beyond early exercise education, I note the inoculating effect exercise has against the globalization of lifestyle diseases and mental health problems.  From this perspective I propose exercise is not just a means of preventing diseases but rather one of reinvesting in all that life has given us.  In this regard our success in life is the happiness that comes with knowing how to make our self whole and healthy. 

We are the product of integrative interactions of opposing and opposite forces; the commitment of cells working together striving to maintain our body and the enhancement of their unity, each of us as a self.  Before we can be happy and live a life that is truly vital we must learn how to be mutually committed and care about our body.  The implications are profound: he who is ignorant of commitment to and caring about his body, is ignorant of love and thus ignorant of life.  There is something deeply embedded in all of us, filling us with a desire to make our Lives into something more than just preventing diseases; even more than mere survival.  My hope is Exercise, Life, and Love will give new insight into the essential role exercise has for living a life that is truly vital.  Moreover, I hope this book will draw attention to the social factors causing our epidemics of inactivity, obesity, and lifestyle diseases.  That it will contribute to a consciousness focused on the work of life and love; i.e., the work of bringing us together as individuals, a society and global community caring about and committed to the unity of life’s latest enhancement with one another and the whole of life.   

Chapter 1

The Path to Powerlessness: An Historical Perspective

SCIENCE IS HIGHLY LOGICAL.  Human conduct is anything but...

FOCUSING ILLUSIONS

How has it come to be that more than two-thirds of our population knowingly shuns exercise and the promise of a longer disease free life?  It is not uncommon to hear people blame modern technology, saying we have engineered exercise out of our lives with automobiles, remote controls, pedways, escalators, elevators, and other modern conveniences.  Without much success thus far, we are trying to engineer exercise back into society with pedometers, heart rate monitors, and other technological fitness gadgets.

We have all heard the people are basically lazy explanation for our epidemic of inactivity.  However, when we look back over the history of our species and we see people have always, gladly and willingly, suffered great hardships, risked and even sacrificed Life for a shot at a better Life.  From this perspective we seem more sentimental than lazy.  We are willing to die and ready to kill, to risk having our blood spilled all over the green pastures for things like love of country, honor and duty, and glory on the battlefield of life.  Even off the battlefield, there are people lining up to climb Mount Everest knowing full well it is an unmerciful killer.  Why? Just for a shot at the exhilarating experience of standing on top of the world?  Right now there are people lighting up a cigarette knowing, as stated on the pack, that smoking will kill them.  Why? Is it just because it looks so cool?  In our head-scratching time, people are blowing themselves up in the name of their deity; for the sake of their cause and the promise of a better life in the after life.  How many times have we come to the crossroads of choosing the ways we are going to live life right here, right now, only to discover the limits of our common sense and watch our logic fall apart?  Though none of the above makes sense to us and we are hard pressed to find the logic behind any of it, the one point that clearly stands out is there’s more to living Life than preventing disease and living longer. 

How can such irrational vanities and sentimentalities make us so bold as to unnecessarily risk life and be stronger than our fears?  After all, we don’t just look for ways to make ourselves feel whole and alive, we work at it.  The strength of our desire to experience these feelings compel us to spend hours, days, months and years training to be a mountaineer, marathon runner, monk, surgeon, Buddhist priest or scientist.  Similarly, our desires induce us to spend hours in front of the television, video games, and internet surfing; lighting up, shooting up, taking antidepressants, anti-anxiety drugs and other drugs that will produce a feeling of being whole and alive, or at least take the edge off the pain. 

Nature, we are taught is not impressed with our sentimentalities or vanities, she is only interested in our ability to adapt and survive and when we can no longer impress her on these fronts, she washes her hands of us.  Sure, when a life-threatening situation (e.g., a terminal disease) pushes our mortality to the forefront of consciousness, most of us readily acknowledge a desire to live longer.  The finality of death makes it something about which most of us don’t like to think, especially when there is no imminent threat to our well-being.  So in that moment in which we are forced to contemplate a future choice between life and death, we will tend to exaggerate the importance of living longer.  It is what researchers call a focusing illusion.[1]  Yet, as soon as we snap out of it, we get back to the business of trying to figure out how to live our Lives in a way that makes us feel like we are whole and alive, even if it kills us. 

The way we live our Lives ultimately comes down to the way we, on a daily basis, strive to make ourselves feel whole and alive.  In spite of their illogical, sentimental and vain nature, the need we all have for feelings of wholeness and aliveness is not to be underestimated.  When there is no relief from feeling fragmented, no knowledge of how to make our Self feel whole; when just surviving, rather than feeling alive, is as good as it gets, that’s when suicide becomes a viable option.  Enrolled in the hard school of Life, we all need a good education if we are to acquire the knowledge of how to make ourselves feel whole and alive.

The Making of Our Epidemic of Inactivity

As a nation, we are experiencing an epidemic of inactivity[2] and a health care crisis.  The two are inseparable.  Our health care crisis is not just about insurance, the high cost of health care or affordable prescription drugs.  It is directly linked to the epidemic of inactivity by a gaping hole in the fabric of our society.  We, as a society, are not taught to care about our health.  We are taught to care more about what we put in our cars than what we put in our bodies.  We are taught that we are going to get sick, going to need medical treatment that is going to be very expensive, and we better have the insurance or other resources to pay for it or else we won’t get it. 

We live in a society in which promoting and treating disease are big business. Nothing magnifies the marketing of disease more than the medicalization of being human.[3] What used to be the normal ups, downs, and in-betweens of living is now relegated to the growing market of abnormalities in need of treatment without cure. Not just for the pharmaceutical companies, the health maintenance organization and other managed care organizations in charge of hospitals and the medical profession, but for a number of products, disease is at the very core of how they are marketed.  At an early age, we are sentimentally coaxed into adopting diseased ways of living Life and, in so being coaxed we learn to be indifferent about our health because we have no control over it or our Self. 

The epidemic of inactivity is a behavioral disease and, like all diseases, thus defined by disorder, or chaos.  When chaos is prolonged and order cannot be restored abnormalities of all kinds will start showing up.  The chaos of inactivity is no exception as structural and functional abnormalities[4] affect our development (from childhood to adolescence and into adulthood), as well as our ability to live life to its fullest. 

Not surprisingly, any prolonged state of chaos is going to be accompanied by psychological abnormalities[5] affecting how we feel about ourselves, our Life, and the world in which we live.  Finally, the longer and more widespread the epidemic, the more likely our social organizations will become chaotic (i.e., diseased).  All of these should be cause for alarm but this latter point is particularly disconcerting because as our social organizations become increasingly diseased, the whole of society is in peril of falling apart. 

In an effort to turn the tide on the inactivity epidemic, we try to break it down, figure-out where it started, the mechanisms driving it, and the nuts and bolts holding it together, so we can then develop ways to stop it.  Through surveys and focus groups, the minds of inactive people have been probed in hopes of understanding why approximately one-fourth of the US adult population still reports no participation in leisure time physical activity.[6]  Why, in spite of promoting activity, more people are reporting levels of leisure time activity that remain insufficient to derive health benefits from it.[7]  Why, only about half of adolescents and young adults (ages 12 – 21 years) participate in regular, vigorous physical activities and why levels of physical activity drop from childhood to adolescents.[8]

As with any epidemic, the factors underlying inactivity are abundant and complex.  Numerous barriers to exercise have been identified including gender[9], age[10], ethnicity[11], socioeconomic status, level of education, where you live (e.g., city, suburb, out in the country), accessibility to exercise facilities (e.g., health clubs, parks, neighborhood recreation centers), environmental opportunities to exercise (e.g., sidewalks, bike paths), competing interests (e.g., watching television, playing computer games, chatting on the internet, hanging out with friends), current disease/health status (recovering from a heart attack, cancer, or a cold), physical limitations (disability, obesity[12]), the time of year (cold, rainy, snowy seasons versus a sunny mild times of the year), and time in general (not enough time to exercise due to work, family, and other commitments).  In addition to the above, urbanization and the advances of modern technology are also implicated as causal factors of our epidemic of inactivity.[13]

To make matters worse, there is the other epidemic spawned by the epidemic of inactivity.  It is the rapid and substantial increase in the number of overweight and obese[14] individuals.  Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) show that from 1980 to 2000 the prevalence of overweight adults increased by 17% and obesity more than doubled (from 15% in 1980 to 31% in 2000).[15]  Between 2000 and 2004, the prevalence of overweight and obesity among adult men continued to increase but not among adult women.  However, from 2005 to 2014 a significant linear trend in the prevalence of obesity was observed for adult women but not for men.  Overall, the prevalence of obesity between 2013 and 2014 remains high for adult men (35%) and women (40.4%).[16]

These data coupled with the medical costs associated with the epidemic of inactivity drive home the point of just how far we are from any substantial progress on bringing the epidemic of inactivity to a halt.  As of 2018, healthcare costs associated with inadequate physical activity were approximately $117 billion.[17]  Adding obesity increases healthcare spending to approximately $210 billion per year.[18]

This tangle of highly variable individual, social, environmental, and technological factors makes finding a treatment difficult.  This is not like other diseases (e.g., polio, or an infection) in which one treatment more or less fits (i.e., effectively treats) all.  The inactivity epidemic challenges health professionals to come up with interventions tailored to target the specific needs of different groups of individuals while simultaneously addressing environmental and technological challenges underlying the epidemic of inactivity.[19]  Although some interventions have been shown effectively increase activity levels over a given period of time[20], by and large the success has been hard to come by. 

In spite of the gallant effort being put forth by the public health and medical communities, the fact that the disease of inactivity is complex and has endured for so long suggests that we reevaluate its etiology.  As logical as they seem, the barriers, modernization, and technology may not be the cause of inactivity but symptomatic of a deeper problem; a misguided quest for a better Life.

We are frequently reminded how we evolved from our prehistoric hunter-gatherer ancestors and thus our bodies were meant to be active.  Yet we seem to overlook the fact our prehistoric ancestors were not just hunter-gatherers.  Like us, their struggle wasn’t just for something to eat.  They too wanted to be something more than just another hunter-gatherer.  No doubt, our advances in technology began with some little savage imagining, studying, contemplating, so hard he probably missed a few hunts and several meals working on a new invention like the wheel.  How many sleepless nights or awakenings in the middle of the night do you think that first flint-flaker or the first inventor of the new rock and stick bound together club suffered?  I don’t know how much easier the post-invention life was for these little savages but I feel confident in stating that their technological inventions were brilliant and efficient utilizations of resources that enhanced the way they lived their lives and the way we live ours. 

We have not evolved just to be active, we have evolved to actively participate in creating a way of living life that maintains and enhances our Lives as individuals, the Life of the societies and the world in which we live; that is to say the whole of life.  It is only when we figure-out ways to enhance the whole of Life, will we live up to our sapien status and know a Life that is truly vital.  We have no choice but follow the footsteps of those pre-historic ancestors from which we and our good Life evolved.  We are, as Nabokov correctly classifies us, the species homopoieticus.[21]

Homopoieticus and the Quest to Enhance Life

Beginning with our prehistoric ancestors, the entire history of science and technology has been founded on and immersed in a tradition of enhancing Life.  Be it atoms for peace or better living through chemistry we are carrying on in the same tradition of making something out of the rocks, clay, wood, scientific data, and everything else that is part of our world, our moon, and our cosmos.  Like our ancestors, we can’t help but strive to make something more out of the Life we live by enhancing the way we live our Lives as individuals, families, communities, and a society. 

The advances in medical technology make for a good case in point.  Who could dispute the value of more effective disease treatments, better diagnostic techniques and measures to prevent life threatening diseases?  All have been made possible by modern advances in medical technology.  The fact that cancer mortality is on the decline in the US, speaks to the success of this technology.[22]

Furthermore, scientists now have the technology to unravel our genetic code and that of other species as well.  To be sure, it is the promise of a better life, and not just a longer one, that rightfully compels the science of medical technology in its quest for new advances in disease treatment and prevention.  Not surprisingly, all of these advancements have contributed to the evolution of medicine from the science of treating diseased individuals and making them well, to the science of treating healthy individuals to make them Better than Well.[23]

Our world of techne[24] has coevolved with us, governed not by adaptations and inventions which favor prolonging life but by those that favor enhancement of the way we live our Lives.  Although we might be inclined to think at this stage of the game, with the rate, scope, and magnitude of technological advances accelerating by the minute, our way of living Life would be enhanced off the charts.  Instead, we are shocked to find out this just isn’t so; that something has gone terribly wrong.

There is an impressive body of research that shows a disturbing maladaptive trend in ways we strive to enhance the way we live our Lives.  In spite of advances on the economic, technological, and materialistic fronts; advances that we are led to believe improve the our way of life, Data from several studies show life dissatisfaction, depression, anxiety, have steadily increased since the end of World War II.  The really bad news: this trend appears to be getting worse.[25]

Extensive cross-generational research shows psychological well-being and social attitudes have worsened over time, particularly among the current generation of young people growing up, in a culture that idolizes wealth, fame, and technological know-how.  This is a generation whose self-esteem is higher than any other before it; a generation that has been taught they can not only have it all, but that they are entitled to it all.  It is also, unfortunately, a generation that has a higher rate of suicide than any other segment of our population; a generation that is more depressed, anxious, sedentary, obese,