Exercise 7: The natural way to exercise

THE NATURAL WAY TO EXERCISE

Over the past 50 years there has been an increased trend in lifestyles toward a more ‘natural’ lifestyle. This is quite obvious in the changes in eating trends, the increased general popularity of jogging as a pass-time, the rise in shops selling ‘natural’ things – from natural foam baths to natural herbs, the activism against smoking, etc.

There is general agreement that natural is better than synthetic. This book does not question this assumption.

What this book does is to question whether much that goes under the guise of being ‘back to nature’ is really back to nature. Too many things are being positioned as being natural when they are totally unnatural, but no one seems to question the assumption that these things are natural and good.

We will look at aspects of modern lifestyles and test these against the ways of nature to see what nature has to say about things.

Obviously one has to start of by inspecting nature, a bit, if one wants to evaluate activities in terms of whether they are more natural than other activities.

The best description of nature’s ways comes from an African saying (and who can deny that Africa is still the continent closest to nature).


The Rule of Africa:
In Africa every lion, when it wakes up, knows that it has to be faster than the slowest buck,
And every buck, when it wakes up, knows it has to be faster than the slowest buck.

There is a lot of wisdom in this saying about nature, and we will come back to this often throughout the book to demonstrate points about what we now call natural lifestyles if only to prove that what we call natural is mostly very unnatural.

This African saying is, of course, a very concise summary of Darwinism.

Darwinism is often described as ‘survival of the fittest’, but even Darwin never used the term because this is not want Darwinism is about. Darwinism is about the non-survival of the weakest. Darwin does not suggest that the best gene pools ultimately survive, but that the bad genes get weeded out.

If one then considers what ALL animals, without an exception (in Africa at least) do between waking up and going to sleep then the answer is: MOSTLY NOTHING!

One does not get to see a springbuck, kudu, lion or elephant wake up, do a few push ups, jog a few miles and then during the day go to the gym. In fact one seldom sees them trying to impress the girls (or guys), this is a special activity that they embark on only when it is necessary – breeding time.

It is true that sometimes one sees them running, but when they do run there is a reason for this. Either they are being chased by something, or they are chasing something.

On odd occasions one does see them jogging toward water. Especially cows do this in the evening when it is homecoming time. It is possible that they are running to work up a good thirst, but somehow this seems to be unlikely. It is more likely that there is an incentive to be among the first to reach the water before the others trample it full of mud.

Whilst it is true that animals mostly do nothing this does not imply that they do absolutely nothing. They walk to where they can graze. Those that have homes (birds, bees, ants, snakes, aardvarks, etc.) will build, or dig, or construct their homes. They might even be trekking to an area of veldt where there is a better supply of food (be it grazing or meat). They will be doing guard duty. Many will indulge in grooming activities (monkeys, birds and elephants), but this is not aimed at making them look better only to rid themselves of lice and parasites. Grooming is a matter of hygiene.

In human terms all of these activities can be considered to be work. They are working to eat, sleep, remain healthy and have the occasional sexual exploit.

Nature only runs when this is part of survival – either to eat or not be eaten. In other words running is classified under work, not pleasure.

What does nature do when it is not working? What does it define as pleasure?

Sleeping, dozing or napping comes very high on the list of what nature defines as pleasure time. This is true for all of nature whether it be animals, reptiles or birds.

There appears to be the occasional romping by especially the youngsters. These are always just short spurts of energy. For most of nature even this waste of energy stops when it reaches some maturity.

Some people theorize that this playing is really just a way that nature’s children acquire their hunting skills. If this was the case then one should classify this behavior as not being pleasure, but work – i.e. like going to school.

It is unlikely that the young in nature romps because they feel a need to learn. After all, how often will an average springbuck be in a real fight? If it has to fight a lion or leopard it is going to lose irrespective how much it has learned from romping and it would be a lot better of if it runs away – this skill is not really improved by romping with a few friends.

The animals that are general thought of as developing their killing skills by romping are parts of the cats or dogs families. Even here, if one considers that male lions seldom join the hunt and therefore do not really need to learn a killing skill, it is questionable whether the learning of hunting skills is a major objective of romping. In any case snakes, crocodiles, falcons and many others do not exhibit romping behavior but remain very effective killers.

This very short exposition, based on the Rule of Africa, leads us to a number of learnings about nature’s way:

RULE 1: Energy is only expended to get to food, shelter or sex.
RULE 2: Energy is only expended to get away from danger, and then only to the extent of being faster than the slowest buck.
RULE 3: Energy is sometimes expended by the very young for short bursts of energetic behaviour.
LEARNING 1: Nature NEVER indulges in behaviours that require energy unless it is for the objectives of Rules 1 to 3.
LEARNING 2: If nature indulges in an energetic behaviour that is not in compliance with Rules 1 to 3, then it is only for a very short time.