For around 10 years I've walked 2-4 ~(3-6 km) miles a day but when traveling I usually go into hardcore walking mode since I like hiking and exploring places on foot. It's not uncommon to end up walking 12-15 miles (~19-24 km) for those days.
Has anyone experienced walking a solid 8-10+ miles a day for a few weeks straight? It's counter intuitive but everything seems to work better. I'm less tired, eat less and I have more mental clarity.
It is a world of a difference compared to 3 miles a day broken up through out the day. I wonder if I've built up a tolerance or if there's something biologically different from putting in longer sessions.
I think, maybe, that as a human moves away from the innocence and security of their childhood years, that “ending” continues to be a lifelong depression in reaction to that end, and it manifests in a variety of ways.
We have a lot of technology so it’s expressed technologically (digital addictions). But overall, every human that has ever lived, lived out this prolonged lifelong depression.
Clinically, this would be considered dysfunctional. But subjectively, there’s no reason why you can’t be in grief forever. People will never want to accept this, but it’s something to think about.
So many people were depressed throughout time, and I think we need to see it more as a spiritual condition more than anything else, as it appears to be not bounded by time, or circumstance.
One of the biggest factors for me personally was going vegetarian, and then vegan. I didn't realize it for 30 years, but it's hard to feel connected to nature, animals, and the environment when you are eating something you didn't kill yourself. Once I made that move, it's a beautiful feeling and a kind of connection to animals and the planet I never knew before. I wasn't even much of a pet person before that.
If people today believe this is something that happens to a terrible level, they'd just truly get a mouthful with all the myriad ways in which premodern life killed us and made us sick. The mortality rates for the prehistoric societies and hunter gatherers that the author mentions was absolutely atrocious by modern standards, based on archeological evidence..
The fundamental problem with many of these analyses is that they're basically stating: "things aren't ideal, boo hoo". Being human in a complex world full of threats internal and external, and both natural and artificial, by default will always make us sick as we individually make our choices to make it worse or better where we have any control at all.
How well we mitigate this compared to how well we mitigated it at any time in the past, and how many completely new options we have for mitigation are much more important than bemoaning the essential reality of the situation.
For example, a hunter gatherer could only do so very little to change any aspect of their diet, daily living habits or basic survival needs. Inside that range was their life and their death. An average modern human, saturated by junk food that their body isn't adapted to handling well, canon the other hand at any time completely remake their diet into something entirely new, or change their career, or take up all kinds of different exercise and sleep options.
Goals of modern life do not seem to include improving human health. The main goal is to just keep pushing the boundaries of every trend as hard as possible and let it take us wherever it goes. Pushing the trends blindly, gives a selling opportunity. We really don't care about where we end up with the trends. It's like an evolving picture where multiple artists keep extending the curvy lines in weirdest ways on all the fringes of the picture and call their part a great art. There is no one who looks at the full picture.
Weights + short/mid distance running is the sweet spot for me. I think it provides the best health/time ratio. You can get in absolutely amazing shape with 45-60mins per day.
The people suggesting 8-10 miles of walking a day is absolutely bonkers to me. That’s like 2-3hours of walking a day! How have you got that kind of time?
Modern life is really good at isolating people. I've faced plenty of struggles in my life and its always the hardest when I don't have a community to lean on. There's a lot to criticize about modern life, sure, but the worst part to me is how challenging we make building and maintaining communities. Displacement has a huge psychological cost that we don't pay a lot of attention to.
Part of this is something I've been thinking about lately. We're reluctant, if not down right unwilling, to un-invent things. By and large we've generally invented things that improve our lives, but with a few slip ups. Some of the slip ups we've undone or trying to undo, e.g. freon based refrigeration, fossil fuels (a be it VERY slowly) and some questionable medical procedures. Other mistakes we're not willing to undo, either do to commercial reason or because we don't like being bored. We seem to be rather unwilling to undo things that hurt us mentally.
Things I really think we need to rollback include social media, which on paper seems like a good idea, but doesn't work well in practise. The same goes (highly) commercialized TV. The 24 hour news-cycle isn't providing any real value, but is still immensely harmful. You can just avoid those thing, but many people can't, they are mentally not equipped to do so. Even those of us who think that we're in control of our media consumption will often catch ourself slipping.
We've created a world that we can't mentally handle, but we're not willing to rollback the inventions that are clearly harmful, because they are profitable and we're bored. We can barely manage gambling, we not even trying to manage or just label media.
If you actually have time to walk, get a dog. I find it hard to motivate going for a walk solo but walking my dog feels like a productive activity. I know if I walk my girl she'll be happier and content just to lie on top of my feet under my desk rather than hunt around the house for trouble.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 24.1 ms ] threadHas anyone experienced walking a solid 8-10+ miles a day for a few weeks straight? It's counter intuitive but everything seems to work better. I'm less tired, eat less and I have more mental clarity.
It is a world of a difference compared to 3 miles a day broken up through out the day. I wonder if I've built up a tolerance or if there's something biologically different from putting in longer sessions.
We have a lot of technology so it’s expressed technologically (digital addictions). But overall, every human that has ever lived, lived out this prolonged lifelong depression.
Clinically, this would be considered dysfunctional. But subjectively, there’s no reason why you can’t be in grief forever. People will never want to accept this, but it’s something to think about.
So many people were depressed throughout time, and I think we need to see it more as a spiritual condition more than anything else, as it appears to be not bounded by time, or circumstance.
I also started doing weight and resistance training for 2 hours a week.
I'm feeling much better as a result. YMMV.
The fundamental problem with many of these analyses is that they're basically stating: "things aren't ideal, boo hoo". Being human in a complex world full of threats internal and external, and both natural and artificial, by default will always make us sick as we individually make our choices to make it worse or better where we have any control at all.
How well we mitigate this compared to how well we mitigated it at any time in the past, and how many completely new options we have for mitigation are much more important than bemoaning the essential reality of the situation.
For example, a hunter gatherer could only do so very little to change any aspect of their diet, daily living habits or basic survival needs. Inside that range was their life and their death. An average modern human, saturated by junk food that their body isn't adapted to handling well, canon the other hand at any time completely remake their diet into something entirely new, or change their career, or take up all kinds of different exercise and sleep options.
When the value has fallen as AI is conveniently revealing, the principle remains.
Things I really think we need to rollback include social media, which on paper seems like a good idea, but doesn't work well in practise. The same goes (highly) commercialized TV. The 24 hour news-cycle isn't providing any real value, but is still immensely harmful. You can just avoid those thing, but many people can't, they are mentally not equipped to do so. Even those of us who think that we're in control of our media consumption will often catch ourself slipping.
We've created a world that we can't mentally handle, but we're not willing to rollback the inventions that are clearly harmful, because they are profitable and we're bored. We can barely manage gambling, we not even trying to manage or just label media.