In the Shadow of the Tree

“The one who plants trees, knowing that he
 (his gendering not mine, I would insert they)
will never sit in their shade.
Has at least started to understand the meaning of life.” Rabindranath Tagore

This inspirational quote got me thinking about the process of learning a new skill. Two things occurred to me about the acquisition of a new skill. There is our interface and difficulty with learning itself and the underlying components and depth of the skill itself. The quote made me ponder when we learn a new skill, we really have no idea how that skill will be utilised across the length and breadth of our lives. Nor do we know how the act of learning it will impact on us either.

What I mean is that sure we will use the skill in the short term for its intended purpose and desire to learn it. But as life progresses, the underlying facets of the skill may bear fruit in unexpected ways.  For example, we may learn how to ski but we have no idea what the deeper learning of that skill set will provide us and more over the difficulty we are confronted with when we try to learn the new skill.

We are usually confronted by something unexpected when learning a new skill. These ‘confrontations’ usually have to do with us, not the skill itself. Learning a new skill will always challenge us. Meeting challenges head on is not always comfortable and could be thought of as an opportunity to get outside our comfort zone. When we are outside that comfort zone great stuff happens!

"On the heels of your comfort zone is complacency and
on the heels of complacency is destruction"
Noble Gibbens.

The calm I feel now when trying something new is exciting. Knowing I will be challenged learning a new skill and having no idea what this will provide me to my future self is a form of Zen.

Have we evolved certain parts of our brain only to de-evolve our ability to move? Zen and the Art of the ‘Lizard Brain’.

The other day I took two of my kids swimming. It was 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) and I had forgotten shoes for my daughter, so I gave her mine. Which meant I had to walk on the hot bitumen to the pool. It got me to thinking how soft my feet had become over the last 50 years. I remember a time as a kid going everywhere with bare feet. I would traverse hot surfaces and fields of grass covered in prickles. I could navigate a wide variety of surfaces without a thought or care.

How and why we become bipedal is divided amongst a few theories. Common themes from these theories attribute our vertical ascension to; the need to carry tools, standing in order to see food and or prey and the general freeing up the upper limbs.

Over time the liberation of the hands enabled us to make and use tools. Sadly, it also meant we needed our brains to evolve to catch up to being bipedal which unfortunately occurred millions of years after bipedalism occurred. Some of the disadvantages included potential back injuries as walking upright and being able lift or carry heavy objects put considerable stress on the lower back. It is thought that varicose veins could be the result of standing upright, due to circulatory system having to move blood against gravity. One of the biggest disadvantages is if injury occurs to one leg or foot it renders the individual unable to move. Despite all that we have survived as an upright. 

We have evolved and continue to evolve all the while trying to make things easier and more comfortable for ourselves. I would even go so far as to say we have pursued this ironically at the cost of movement. That is to say that we hardly move any more. Are we de-evolving physically while our minds evolve? Surely it’s time to bring about balance again.

If I take a snapshot of my day. My food is in the fridge. I don’t have to move much to get it, no hunting or gathering there. My washing has been done by a machine even the drying of it - I didn’t have to go to a river to wash it. On top of all that the terrain I move on is predominantly sealed and flat. I’m not forced to focus on my balance because the ground is mostly all flat. My body isn’t really challenged. There is no prey so my flight, freeze and fight response is not challenged.

This lack of movement is now exacerbated by being hyper focused on the handheld devises (‘text neck’) and bad posture especially at a desk. It is worth noting that the average weight of the human head is roughly 5.4 kilograms (12 pounds). Now when the neck is lent forward that weight on the cervical spine can inflate to as much as 27.2 kilograms (60 pounds) depending on the degree. Even with a small degree increase like fifteen degrees the weight of the head can more than double to around 12.2 kilograms (27 pounds). This extra stress on the neck and lower back combined with our general lack of movement means our poor bodies could be destine to de-evolve.

Therefore, I believe the challenge in our modern lives is to confront this absence of movement and lack of movement awareness front on. I would posit we can achieve this in two ways. By finding a system of movement that gets you up and moving well that works for you. This could be a movement class, martial arts, cross fit or climbing – regardless it needs to be a healthy and safe movement system that works for you. Secondly finding ways to tap into that part of our brain that has been left dormant as we have evolved – cerebellum or our ‘lizard brain’. It is directly connected to the spinal cord (or brainstem). As living creatures, we have basic tasks that must be performed in order for us to sustain life. Those functions originate in this most primitive portion of the brain. Tasks such as: reproduction, balance, reflexive behaviours, heartbeat, breathing, feeding, digestion and muscle control.

I sense the answer to reigniting our ability to move again and move well in the future lies in the harmonious use of the basic functions of the body with a huge awareness of the ‘lizard brain’. With a healthy mental and physical approach to developing our bodies and ‘lizard brain’ we could set our bodies up to be more prepared for a future that is yet unknown. If we think more globally and with a view to the future, we don’t know what our environment will look like. With all the atmospherics changes occurring we need to be more vigilant than ever as evolving humans. The very ground we walk on could be vastly different in the future than it is today. With all this talk of mindfulness I think it is also time to be considering a term: bodyfulness.