Posture.

What is going on here? Why does this guy not have a head? What’s the deal with his spine?

Allow me to be provocative. I just returned from a weekend getaway, and I’m feeling happily punchy.

Our culture is essentially a confusion factory.

Seriously, if this culture is best at producing anything, it is confusion.

I don’t think it’s on purpose, per se, but it’s definitely what happens.

Be honest, do you think we really know what we’re doing?

Ok, ok, who is this “we”, what do I mean by “our”, and what is the “culture”? Well, “We” is basically anyone reading this, and, quite frankly, on some level, I think, everyone. Everyone, to be clear, who engages in our modern culture. What’s unique about this culture? Well, again, it seems to be a machine which mostly produces, to use a different word, distractions.

Consider these photos.

In the first 2, I am deliberately standing with as much effort as I can muster to keep myself upright. In the 3rd and 4th, I let go of all of the effort.

If you have paid attention to much of what I post here in the last year, you’d probably agree posting pictures of myself is not my wheelhouse. I think I have this built in safety mechanism which keeps from doing it. That, or I really am secretly an 87 year old man who just can’t be bothered…

Most likely, though, it’s because I’ve realized something:

What we REALly need is honestly very, very simple.

We mostly just need AWARENESS.

The thing about awareness, of course, is it isn’t flashy.

Yes, you can see it. You can see the difference in my posture when I’m engaging, and aware, and paying attention, and when I’m just being lazy.

The only difference is awareness. Period.

So, does our culture manufacture awareness?

No, not at all.

BUT IT CAN. Or, more importantly, we CAN manufacture it ourselves. How? The easiest way I know is movement. And honestly, even if you don’t start with movement, you eventually have to go there.

Yes, you HAVE TO. There is “literally”—cue Chris Traeger, a la “Park and Rec”—no avoiding it.

Movement, though, is not enough. It’s movement with awareness, and specifically CONTEXT. In other words, there is really, most importantly, no bypassing the need to THINK BETTER.

Hence, I don’t really like catching your attention with bells and whistles.

You need to THINK.

Do you really know anyone successful, in any context, who wasn’t primarily a good THINKER?

…So yes, we Row. Squat. Snatch and clean. We monkey around. And we sprint. A lot

It’s great.

But my main practice, truly, is just what you see here. It’s not picturesque. It’s damn boring, in fact.

But it is absolutely what matters the most.

Being aware of the distinction between active and passive, cause and effect, in EVERY MOMENT.

The relationships between the physicality of your existence, and the psychological, the ecological, the environmental, and the filial…

THIS is what matters most.

This is how I am personally going to be to still jump from one boulder to another at 75, and climb a mountain at 110. Figuratively and literally.

It’s because I think, and I want you to think too.