I've been thinking and planning and procrastinating. The time has come for all of that to stop and I have to just write the first post. This first post is simply a way for me to put into words what I want to accomplish with this blog. I don't know if anyone will ever read it. I can't quite discount that possibility because I run my own fitness and wellness business and so I guess I would actually have an audience if I so choose.
So here's the deal. I spend a lot of time educating myself of health, fitness and wellness, particularly as it pertains to thoughts, moods and behaviours. I have a history of serious disability due to a mood disorder and somehow found my way out of it by taking a holistic approach. I managed to get off all the medications and have been healthy for almost 10 years. The single most important insight I had during this healing process was that any separation between mind and body, between emotional and physical, is purely arbitrary, if not totally fictional. I could write an entire book just on healing mood disorders through diet and exercise, and maybe an entire other book on the philosophical implications of the mind sciences; psychology, neurobiology, endocrinology and such, but no books today (maybe that philosophy degree will eventually come in handy). I just want to flesh out what I hope to accomplish here.
I deeply value veracity and understanding. I respect those to seek truth and enlightenment. There are some inherent philosophical objections to dedicating so much of one's self to the search for truth. First, the truth is so ill-defined and sometimes we don't recognize it if it punches us in the face. Nature, and humans in particular, are so complex that I know I will never have a complete understanding of how it all works. Second, the truth isn't always want we want it to be. Sometimes the truth is downright depressing. However, everything else is the product of ignorance or deceit, and I'm not willing to value either of those. So, that means I will continue to learn and understand as much as I can.
Every once in a while, I come across something that creates a great 'aha' moment and in that moment, everything seems clear and simple and easy. Those are really beautiful, mind-blowing moments and I'd like to share them. I used to think that mind-blowing kind of stuff only applied to elegant mathematical proofs, computability theory, cosmology and other cool physical sciences. What's interesting is that now I get those moments when I come across a truly elegant model for health or fitness. Elegant is a word we use a lot in math to describe those really great proofs that I was never creative enough to come up with on my own, but that I was just smart enough to recognize as genius when I actually saw the solution (maybe that math degree will also come in handy eventually).
What I hope to share on this blog is a string of insights, little ones and big ones, along with a few practical implications. Posts I have in the works include models or frameworks for health and fitness based on toxicity, evolution and endocrinology and well as a post on CrossFit's model for health and fitness, self-preservation as a model for disease, hormesis, digestion, the gut brain connection, the health-economy connection, co-morbitity factors, and more...
