Not frequently enough, but often I reflect on thanks to all the people in my life. No thanks to me. Thanks to them. I am deeply grateful for the many selfless supporters of me, my business, my vision, and my family. I have done nothing noteworthy in a vacuum. That my children have food to eat and a home for refuge is due to the outpouring of love and care from many, many incredible superhumans. From family to friends to clients to peers, I’m astonished at how many truly selfless people have touched the journey through which I still endeavor.
I just thank everybody. In dark moments, I’ve had friends just show up, traveling across the world, without hesitation or question, to simply be present. I have buddies who had the perspective to anticipate need when I abruptly travelled for my father’s funeral. I’ve had family just open their homes without question. I’ve had clients bend schedules and increase support during my times of challenge. I once had a peer express sympathy for the death of my best friend BEFORE I even knew I’d lost him. While sadly others pat themselves on the back for empty condolences (ie - them: “let me know if there’s anything I can do;” me: “yes, actually, is it possible to...;” them: *crickets*), I had genuine awesome people step up in tangible ways which they didn’t need to do, weren’t expected to do, and certainly never asked to do. I thank everybody. And I realize how dark it must seem for people who have so little support. It can be quite challenging to conjure up a “thank you” when you are in tough moments. When sitting in a dark mental space, I have two thoughts for you: 1.) there are more people willing and ready to be your ally than you realize 2.) there are more people willing and ready to be my enemy than you realize To the first one, the substance of character in others is greater than you can imagine. You’ve seen it. People want something worthwhile for which they’ll fight. They’ll spend hours on debates and subjects which have nothing to do with them, about which they know little, and for which their efforts have no practical application. Ask those people for support. Ask them to make a real contribution to a real human they actually know in a real way. Give them an opportunity to be more than a keyboard warrior and a caricatured antagonist. To the second, as much support as I have, 100-to-1, people wish for my failure. They pray for it. Crabs in a bucket don’t rejoice at the sight of one climbing out. Out of jealously and low confidence, there are people I know who not only didn’t give a rip when I had Lyme disease or the many times we almost lost our son in the ER, I get a sense they were pleased, sitting well in their schadenfreude. Several times, to my total surprise, people of whom I’d always spoken highly, just went radio silent or actively worked against me in my moments of great success or great defeat. And I thank them too. The fakes, the phonies, the many, many broken people with chips on their shoulders, inimical as they are, and as incapable of support as they choose to be - thank you. I don’t mean it tongue-in-cheek. I mean it. You have shown me by comparison how incredible the other people in my life are. And I’ve learned from you that I should not become hard-hearted or indifferent even to you, even to those who choose enmity - for it is the easy path, the common path, the empty path. That’s the beauty of naysayers and detractors. They make evident just how wonderful your real supporters are. And they aren’t to be hated or reviled. They’re to be pitied, loved, and thanked as well. And I hope people can apply this understanding to all their enemies, to all the indifferent wallflowers, to all the empty words of pseudo-support. Thank everybody.
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April 2020 researchers discovered a whole new set of functions in the human eye: https://news.northwestern.edu/.../eyes-send-an.../. The eye. 2020. This upended thousands of years of study and revised all of the modern understanding of the eye. The eye. 2020. No pun intended.
Egyptians first studied the anatomical structure of the eye over 3,500 years ago. Aristotle dissected eyes 2,400 years ago. In the following two millennia, physicians refined their understanding. There are genius eye specialists TODAY who spent an entire career in the modern era without knowing of the eye’s inhibitory signals. Even the best-of-the-best, after 60 years of personal study, after 3,500 years of human inspection, didn’t know about a whole SET of functions in the human eye. The research is so recent, some still don’t. This happens a lot. Every scientific subtopic has five to ten reputable journals which are publishing ten to thirty papers per month on average. Not all of them are ground-breaking or earth-shattering findings. But, do the math. Let’s say there are around forty health-implication subtopics, seven solid journals a piece, and fifteen papers per month in each: over a thousand findings pertinent to health PER WEEK. This isn’t including peripheral or speciality journals or university department internal publications, many of which also share incredible insights with a lot of academic rigor. Every single day there is a significant challenge to prior dogma or “common sense”. Please, be very careful referencing your understanding of a “health fact” when you’re pulling it from more than a year ago. There is a substantial likelihood it was dramatically revised or totally refuted long ago. And never forget that is was never THE truth to begin with. It was A finding. This is how discovery works. Bertrand Russell famously said, “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are so confident while the intelligent are full of doubt.” This is harshly unassailable. In a field of knowledge, confidence IS naivety. Doubt IS wisdom. Take any subject. Study 5 more years, 10 more, 40 more. What we once thought we knew was closer to “nothing” than “most.” And today is the same. Perspective shift is difficult. I face it all the time. 16,000 consults and over 55,000 hours of professional experience later, I honestly say, “I know a FEW things,” when we discuss health and fitness or the fitness industry. New discoveries don't ever necessarily become "common sense," by the way. MIT repeatedly proved that a specified light therapy removes even advanced Alzheimer's plaques years ago. This wasn't even new. They were actually incredibly behind-the-curve in this "discovery," since anyone familiar with brain wave oscillations had already concluded it MUST be the case many decades prior. Yet, here we are, three years after the published findings, and there isn't a memory care clinic in the United States which focuses on this, most clinicians don't even know about the science, and the average person has long forgotten the news headlines from 2015 to 2019. Given that the discovery is pertinent to curing Alzheimer's, how fitting that we let the news deteriorate, disappear, and be forgotten. Again, no pun intended. There is something about the human brain which sinks its claws into an old and inaccurate summary and will not move. Even with new discovery, even promising discovery, even world-changing discovery, people tend to ignore, reject, or forget it. I see people actually seek to do this. Instead of scouring the textbooks or reputable journals in a library for answers, they tend to choose the loudest blowhard with the greatest lack of experience. I marvel at the self-assured coaches who’ve never worked a single week in their lives with as many appointments as I have on my calendar for a single day. There are online influencers who never actually worked full time in a real live facility, but have millions of followers. Why? Because they are continuously shouting that they own THE answer. We all know this has to be incorrect. But it's easy. So, it sells. What sells becomes "common sense" for a "health fact." Shouldn’t we learn more? Shouldn’t we change? There are voters who are “lifelong” fill-in-political-party-here. I apologize. I am not wired that way. No matter how effective or good of an answer I find, I am still looking for better. Why is lack of wisdom and unchanging understandings of global systems a good thing? There are new discoveries every day; how is it a good thing to believe the same, old, untrue flavor of an idea after years, decades, a life? Certainty is a function of incomplete understanding. Uncertainty is a function of wisdom. As we begin to peel away the layers of ignorance, we tend to notice more questions, not more answers. In fitness, I am confronted with this daily. In my area of specialized expertise, there are a handful of items about which I’m relatively certain. But there is no grand sweeping health and fitness truth which I’m not willing to re-evaluate. If I see a strong enough counterexample today, tomorrow I will throw away a dearly-held piece of advice I've been using for years. I have been obsessed with this area of study for over 30 years. I have been professionally doing this for almost 20. I. DON’T. KNOW. IT. MOSTLY. I have enough experience to know that not every “perfect” plan or program works for all sets of biochemistry out there. Pick a fitness ideology; and I have at least one case study which supports it and one which disproves it. I have worked with enough people to know that there is no “THE answer”. I have personally experimented with enough diet styles to know any one of them can work in the short term, and most fail the long term litmus test. On purpose, I have been up near 300lbs and down to trace body fat. And I can still say, “I don’t truly know it mostly.” Time changes. People change, even when they swear they don’t. Physical laws remain. But how those laws interface with us is disparate. Part of the reason why I’m a pragmatist is I don’t want to trap myself inside an incorrect ideology/position which isn’t allowed to alter as new facts and discoveries arise. If a tactic works, it works. Enjoy it while it lasts. Nothing works forever. I’ve coached enough competitive athletes and former competitive athletes to know that the absolute “best programming” is survivor bias, not a testament to the program. The program worked because of WHO followed it, not because of WHAT the program was. Let’s keep looking. Let’s find something better. Forget pretending to know it all. We don’t even know it mostly. Many things we thought we knew are not true. New discoveries happen daily. And when we’re talking health and fitness, ignoring the constant publishing, the constant forward march of science, the daily revisions and refutations, citing an old “common sense” understanding of “health facts” is neither sense nor facts. Probably, it isn’t simply a little wrong or outdated. Probably, it was completely false and ancient when you first learned it. I catch a lot of meaningless statements from people. I don’t know if they know it. So I’ll ask them to clarify; and you can see it dawn on them that they didn’t really say anything meaningful at all:
- “Eat healthier” - “Try to be more active” - “Immune system” Ok. Can you make that phrase mean something? “Eat healthier” is the top of the list. People say this A LOT. Do they read anything with any sophistication in order to understand what that might entail? No. But they heard it once. So they say it. It gets watered into absolute nothingness: “I’m trying to eat healthier.” That means nothing. It contains no meaning whatsoever. What specifically ARE you doing? Compared to what? Let us not put moral judgements on it. It may or may not be healthy by someone else’s standard. Is it PRODUCTIVE for you? How? A close second is “I’m trying to be more active.” What does that even mean? Compared to what? Based on what? At what intensity, duration, frequency, based on what sensibility? Contextless, it’s just meaningless. Two billion people walk at least six hours per day everyday to find potable water. What PRODUCTIVE activity ARE you doing? How will you ensure you KEEP doing it? No manager worth her salt would accept employees saying, “I’m trying to work harder.” That means nothing. What PRECISELY are you doing? Provide supporting evidence, please. No worthwhile parent cares AT ALL about a child saying, “I’m trying to be good.” Meaningless. Tell me what you ARE doing and HOW you’re developing discipline and acumen. For maybe a year I’ve been hearing people invoke “immune system” left and right with no specificity in the least. Ok. Can you please make that phrase mean something at all? Clarify. Which immune system? Adaptive or acquired or innate? Acquired active or acquired passive? Which pathway? AKT, antigen processing/presentation, APRIL, B-cell development, BCR, CD4, CD8, TCR, CTLA4, FAS, GzmA, ICos-ICosL in T-helper, IL-2, IL-6, IL-10, interferon, JAK/STAT, MAPK, PI3K, RANK, TGF-Beta, TH1, or TH2 pathways? Tell me what you know about apoptosis, MHC, B-cells, T-cells, Ig heavy and light chains, subunits, foreign epitopes, APo1, CD95, the TNF superfamily, caspases, interleukins, NK cells, cytokines, hematopoiesis, kinases, lymphocytes, osteoclasts, homeostasis, and tumoricidal effect. Nothing. Nada. No dice. “Immune system” is one of the most meaningless empty sentiments a person can make. It’s like saying you’re a fan of water or not a fan of water. Ok? Cool. Do you mean you like drinking fresh water or you like swimming in the ocean? Because, just for the record, both involve water but have absolutely nothing meaningful to do with each other. “Sun is good” might make for a catchy slogan; but what does that even mean? It’s totally devoid of definition. Do you mean vitamin D from sunlight can be beneficial? Or you enjoy the change in seasons and shifts from day to night? Because, just for the record, both involve sun and have absolutely nothing meaningful to do with each other. “Healthier,” “more active,” and “immune system” are just like that. Eating more of certain things and less of others is more or less healthy for different people. The lowest minimum physical activity recommendation of any health department on earth is 150 minutes per week. “More” could be working up toward the minimum, at the minimum, or over the minimum. “More” could be less time with greater intensity. The American College of Sports Medicine leans toward 300 minutes, 60 of which should be “vigorous.” As sad as all of that is, undefined “immune system” is the emptiest crap I’ve heard in a while. Which one? Which immune system? Which pathway? Just meaningless. How can anyone engage, communicate, discuss, or debate, when the top popular phrases used in any health subject are utterly bereft of meaning? Other subjects follow suit, of course. If a campaign tag line is longer than four words, forget it. If a company name exceeds five syllables, might as well file bankruptcy right now. People will not listen the moment you take a phrase to a meaningful clarity. I mean, I get it. We wouldn’t want people to create more than two understandings on a subject. That would be scary. Can you imagine the chaos if a third and fourth perspective broke free? Just melee. So, let’s keep it simple. Keep it small. Keep it imprecise and inaccurate. Everything is bad or good. I’m pro or anti. X is dangerous or not. There exist no shades, no colors, no caveats. In fact, why even bother with words? Let us reduce ourselves to four to five animalistic grunts or yelps. And God forbid we embrace the complexity of life. Let’s get it down to two syllables so it’ll stick - MAGY: Meaningless Americana Grunts Yelps. But really, the words for each letter in the acronym don’t even matter. It could just as easily be “mm…guh.” And I can guarantee that would have a shot at the top 5 pieces of health advice. |
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