OK, I’m the first to admit it: I make up a lot of stuff. Over the last few years I’ve made up stories about talking bears, time travel, fitness shamans and canine fitness consultants. But this time, I’m not making it up. I swear it.

You see, the hottest thing in the fitness world at the moment is “Convict Conditioning.”  I read about it–I’m not making this up either–in a national magazine called–inexplicably–“Health.” The brain-child of one or more ex-cons, this training program reportedly offers the ultimate in punishment, abuse and according to its promoters, results.

This, of course, is a subject just begging for satire:

“Train the way the cons do!”

“If you’re doing 15-to-life in the big house, you’ve got to be tough. Let us show you the secrets of the cell block.”

“Sculpt your abs in lockup! You’ll have plenty of free time to train!”

I guess that boot camps just aren’t macho enough anymore. If you really want to get in shape, don’t bother with the big-box gyms, the DVDs or those sissy personal trainers. Just go out and commit a class-1 felony with a firearm and you’ll be in lockup in no time. And be sure to bust some really serious laws, otherwise you’ll just be doing time in a Martha Stewart county club facility– and you’ll never get into shape that way.

Of course, some people might say that convict conditioning is precisely what we need at this moment in history. After all, many observers have compared the modern city to an over-sized penitentiary with its severe restrictions on physical and psychological freedom. If you live in the city, you know the predicament: locked in one cage or another for weeks, months or years at a time. Walls, barriers, fences, cars, cubicles and layer upon layer of rules, laws, codes and guidelines: we are effectively incarcerated as it is. So, maybe “convict conditioning” is in fact what we need. When in the pen, do as the inmates do. Maybe the ex-cons really are the experts on surviving the modern world.

But seriously, the real problem here is the growing appeal of this sort of draconian, authoritarian fitness style. In this sense, convict conditioning is no different than fitness boot camps. Both are driven by the widespread belief that the only way to get the body into shape is to beat it into submission. We’ve tried exercise and diet– and failed miserably at both–and now we’ve come to the conclusion that our impulses towards sloth, overeating and physical apathy are completely uncontrollable. Our only recourse is to be dominated by a screaming boot camp drill sergeant or locked up in a dark cell with a huge, sweaty con named “Bubba.”

isn’t there a better way?

How did we get to this state? Why are we so ready to give up on ourselves and hand our lives over to external, controlling agents?

There’s plenty of blame to go around, of course. We can point our fingers at our modern infrastructure and its body-hostile qualities. We can point to marketing and media and the constant messaging to consume more of everything. We can blame modern technology for sucking our attention away from one another and the natural world. And of course, we can blame our Cartesian, mind-centric culture that devalues the body and the natural world.

So, there’s a thousand reasons why we might feel powerless. The modern world is hostile in many ways and evolution has given us powerful impulses towards sloth and gluttony. In this sort of context, it really comes as no surprise that people resort to desperate measures to get their lives and their bodies back.

But I submit that there is a better way, one that doesn’t involve a stint in the military or a long-term relationship with the criminal justice system. That better way is built around physical creativity, positive social experience and contact with the natural world. The better way involves getting away from the boredom-intensive environments and programs that we have constructed for ourselves: big gyms, exercise machines, drills, routines and spreadsheets. The better way involves moving towards creative physical challenge, personal expression, outdoor experience and responsibility for one’s body.

We are capable! We can create beautiful, exciting and sustainable habits of eating, moving and living. We can find our own ways to sweat and lift, ways that fit the natural world with a spirit of play, joy and transformation. Authoritarian fitness environments are not only unnecessary, they ultimately reinforce our sense of powerlessness. Instead, it’s time to start taking responsibility for our own experience, effectiveness and enjoyment. Get out of the pen and start living life as a free and healthy animal.

What does it mean when a supple, young creature gets up in front of a group of people and shows them how to move their bodies? Does it have any significance? Does it offer any motivating power or inspiration?

I suggest that it doesn’t really tell us a great deal. Of course the youngster can move. Of course he or she can jump, stretch and lift. Of course he or she is slender and beautiful. That’s the nature of young bodies. When you’re twenty or thirty years old, you look great and you can do almost anything. And thus, your exceptional performance doesn’t really carry much weight. We may be impressed or jealous, but we’re not truly inspired.

I have long believed that health and fitness credibility lies with those who’ve figured out ways to sustain their performance over the course of decades. These are the people who have the formula.These are the people that we should be listening to.

Paul Chek once suggested – tongue in cheek, I’m sure – that doctors should practice naked or nearly so, in order that patients could see how they managed their own health. If your physician is in terrible condition after all, it really takes a bite out of his credibility.

In a similar way, I’ve come to the conclusion that there should be a minimum age for health and fitness instructors. Let’s say 40. Or better yet, 50. If you can stand up in front of a group and demonstrate your long-term results in the flesh, then you’re qualified. No exams or certifications necessary.

Over the years, many of us have been struck by the powerful imagery of “Getting Old is Not for Sissies.” This cover photo stands as an enduring icon for what’s possible. At the time this photo was taken, John Turner was 67 years old. As a practicing psychiatrist, he spoke a refreshing philosophy: “I think physicians have a responsibility to sell health at least as much as they sell pills.” (He made this statement in the early 1980′s, before the medical industry dove headlong into techno-pharmaceutical fixes for every human affliction.) Who wouldn’t want this man as a teacher, fitness instructor or physician?

In this same spirit, I’ve recently discovered a powerful new book called Fifty Athletes Over Fifty. Author Don McGrath has interviewed a series of rare individuals, athletes who are still in the game, still living a highly physical life well into what some people call “old age.” The individual stories are fascinating, but it’s the core idea that really carries the quest. For McGrath and his lifetime athletes, it’s all about developing the right relationship with the body, the process and the sport. In short, it’s about falling in love with movement.

McGrath sums up his findings in a simple paradigm: Love it – dream it – live it – powered by feelings of joy, fun, sensation and accomplishment. It’s a powerful formula, one that has been obvious to young, independent athletes for a long time. Surfers, skateboarders, rockclimbers and free runners have built entire lifestyles, sub-cultures and movement disciplines around quality life experience. For them, no extrinsic motivation is required. It’s the experience and the dream that pulls them into active, committed participation.

Sadly, this auto-telic approach has been largely eclipsed by linear thinkers who seek to reduce human health to spreadsheet-ready numbers and formulas, as if emotion and spirit had nothing to do with physical engagement. On the contrary, emotion, spirit and aesthetics exert a powerful pull that lasts a lifetime. If you fall in love with your practice, your art or your discipline, the technicalities are just a sideshow.

Listen to Don’s interview with Frank Forencich.

Question: What’s the biggest health problem in the country today?

Answer: It’s not what you think.

It’s not obesity, diabetes, heart disease, low back pain or cancer.

If you’re thinking depression, you’re getting warm, but that’s still not quite on the mark.

My claim will surprise you, because it’s not biomedical in the conventional sense. It’s almost impossible to measure or track, but it’s very real and has profound consequences across the spectrum of human performance, health and experience.

In fact, the greatest health problem in the country today is presenteeism, the lack of engagement with physicality, life and the body. Allow me to explain…

Presenteeism is a term taken from workplace studies, a variation on the word absenteeism. Presenteeism refers to the condition in which people bring their bodies to the workplace, but leave their attention at home. They’re present, but they’re not really participating in a substantive way. It’s estimated that presenteeism costs American business billions of dollars annually and is even more costly than absenteeism.

Presenteeism in the workplace is bad enough, but there’s another sense of presenteeism that people bring, not just to work, but to their bodies. That is, many of us are markedly disengaged from our physicality; we live in our bodies as passive spectators. We use our bodies as locomotor devices to get from place to place, to fulfill obligations or to sample shallow pleasures, but rarely do we participate fully in the act of being totally physically alive.

Physical presenteeism has now become a genuine epidemic with vast numbers of people who never engage their bodies in any consistent or substantive way. They have vital signs, but are only half alive. They live passively in their bodies, like ghosts.

origins

Full participation and engagement with the physical body has been the historical norm for the vast majority of human history, but modernity has weakened our engagement with ourselves. The process began with technological innovations that made physicality increasingly optional. When motors and engines do all our work for us, there’s no compelling reason to get our bodies involved and people begin to withdraw from their physicality.

Increasing medicalization of human life has also contributed to our non-participation.  The invention of antibiotics, technical and pharmaceutical medicine and a highly trained class of body experts leaves the average person out of the loop. When it comes to matters of the body, many of us are now content to leave it to others. Our bodies, it seems, are just not a part of our job description.

Finally, much of our physical presenteeism stems from our experience and relationship with TV and other passive media. The medium promotes disengagement: All you have to do is show up and press a button; no participation or risk is required. As millions of disengaged people spend billions of hours absorbing media, we create a spectator culture. We sit back and become weak, passive spectators of our own bodies.

a disease in itself

It’s almost certainly the case that physical presenteeism leads to biomedical afflictions such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, low back pain, fibromyalgia and other disorders. After all, when we withdraw our attention and engagement from our physicality, we also take away a powerful source of vitality and energy; in turn, our bodies become more vulnerable to the challenges of the world. Presenteeism also leads to a loss of meaning, a vulnerability to depression and a general weakening of the organism as a whole. It seems probable that a huge percentage of our modern “lifestyle diseases” are either caused or exacerbated by our failure to engage in a meaningful physical relationship with our bodies.

But while the link between presenteeism and disease is almost certainly real, this fact misses the deeper point. That is, quite apart from the health consequences, physical presenteeism is a disease in and of itself, a state of diminished vitality and life. How else would you describe a condition that somehow leads a person to give away a substantial proportion of his or her most precious life experience? Call it an existential disease if you must, but the fact remains: physical presenteeism is not a minor side-effect of the modern human experience. It is a major, debilitating disease that wrecks millions of lives every year.

Ironically, the fitness industry itself promotes this epidemic of physical disengagement by bowing down to the prevailing cultural narrtative that “exercise is boring.” To remedy this presumption, they set up treadmills and other cardio equipment with wide-screen TVs. In this environment, customers can mount the machine, turn off their attention and go unconscious until the buzzer goes off. This is nothing less than a prescription for physical disengagement. Even worse, the whole thing turns out to be a net negative for the exerciser. Any gains made in cardiovascular fitness are offset by the deepening habit of disengagement that people build up in front of the TV. As Jim Loehr put it in his bestselling The Power of Story,

“There’s a staggering amount of waste created every day in gyms across America as seemingly dedicated patrons run on treadmills or climb StairMasters while watching CNBC or ESPN or listening to their iPods, not at all connecting with the physical activity they’re supposedly engaged in.”

Every time a big box gym installs another treadmill with a TV, the fitness industry advances a disengaged lifestyle and a dysfunctional relationship with the body. In this sense, we are definitely part of the problem.

air guitar heroes

At the outset, this distinction between presenteeism and full engagement may seem subtle, but over time it becones immense. Neuroscientist John Medina, author of Brain Rules, makes this point crystal clear when he says “the difference between just showing up and full engagement is the difference between air guitar and actually learning to play the guitar.” You can play air guitar all you want, but it will never make you a musician. For that, you have to engage, sweat, participate and take personal risk, over and over again, for thousands of hours. Merely holding the guitar in your hands will get you nowhere. The analogy is clear: By failing to engage our bodies with depth, substance and authentic participation, we are now creating vast populations of physical air guitarists. It’s no wonder our health is failing.

Woody Allen was wrong

Woody Allen once declared that “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” Coaches and commentators often bring out this quote when they try to motivate people to get past the sticking point of total apathy, hoping to inspire them to get off the couch and actually do something. Obviously, showing up is better than not being there at all, but fundamentally, Woody Allen was completely off the mark. In fact, simply showing up doesn’t get us anywhere near 80% of the way to success. Just showing up for conditioning class or dance, music, job training or any other discipline doesn’t even get us close to learning or high performance. No, we have to get our bodies, our attention and our lives intimately involved in the process. Being present is obviously necessary, but it’s not even close to being sufficient. To revise Allen’s estimate, we might say “Twenty percent of success is showing up. The rest depends on full participation and engagement.”

See also “The Power of Full Engagement” by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz

TBZKQDAYX5JP

In each weekly issue, Sports Illustrated runs a clip called “This week’s sign of the apocalypse.” It’s usually some outrageous gem of stupidity or incompetence, a sporting equivalent of the Darwin Awards. Of course, there’s plenty of material to choose from in today’s world, particularly in the world of “health and fitness.” For this week’s sign of the apocalypse, I nominate Newsweek’s July 28 issue, “The Science of Healthy Living.”

You’ll recognize the issue straight away on the news stand: plastic see-through bodies, entirely without background, context or life support. The cover imagery is ickky enough as it is, but it’s the content, or lack of content I should say, that really tells the story. The main feature, “Keys to a Healthy Life,” is pure boilerplate, a photocopied version of the techno-pharmaceutical model that permeates the world of modern medical “care.” According to Newsweek, the “keys to health” turn out to be tests and screening. It’s all about uncovering incipient disease and channeling people into the care of an expert class for control and treatment. Aside from recommendations that children brush and floss their teeth, there’s almost nothing on lifestyle, behavior or relationship on any level. If people would just submit to full-body scans on a regular basis, they would be “healthy.”

The exercise recommendation is spectacularly uninspiring: A pathetically bored doctor from Harvard Medical School writes of his treadmill-and-TV workout, as if this were some sort of solution to our physical malaise. Apparently, this is as much as he expects from his mind-body and its encounter with the world; just grind out the mileage and hope that the TV will distract you from the unpleasantness of a body in motion.

But the real story in this feature was complete and total absence of reference to earth, land and habitat. Not one word about the living world. Not one word about exposure to the elements. Not one word about forming a relationship with the land that gives life to the body. Not one word about community, tribe or human contact. These things, apparently, are too far removed from the anatomy chart to be taken seriously. According to Newsweek, the body can and should remain in a laboratory where it can be measured, tweaked and manipulated. Then, if we can repair its malfunctions, we can declare it “healthy.”

Newsweek’s take on health and the body is clearly pathological, even insane. No body can live in isolation. No animal can thrive without a life support system. Remove an organism from its grounding habitat–even symbolically, metaphorically and intellectually–and it will begin to feel unease, anxiety and ultimately, disease. The proof is only a few pages away from Newsweek’s feature story itself: on page 36 we read about “Death on Our Shores,” the continuing creepy saga about the black hole at the bottom of the ocean.

So the question we must put to ourselves and the editors at Newsweek: How does your body feel when you hear about the devastation in the Gulf and other threats to the biosphere? If you’ve got a pulse and even a modest sense of context, you just might feel it deep down in your gut, in your mind and in your tissue. You can bet that you’ll experience changes in your biochemistry, your neuroendocrine profile and your serotonin system. Your plastic brain will change the way it manages your body. Your disposition and attitude will change too, with ripple effects that cascade to the most remote outposts of your body.

This is not some sort of mystical, hippie-quantum physiology. This is a real cause-and-effect process that is backed up by hard-ass, evidence-based research. Mind, body, land and health are intimately connected. You can pretend that mind is separate from body or that body is separate from habitat, but if you do, you’ll perpetuate a dangerous falsehood that is profoundly health-negative.

Newsweek has perpetrated a work of spectacular ignorance. The time has come to acknowledge the earth-body connection. The time has come to integrate ourselves back into the fabric of the land. We are of the land. This is where our health begins.

Up to now, it’s all been hippie-talk. Let’s get back to the earth, they all say. It’s good for your body and good for your spirit.  And it not just the hippies either. Native people have always advocated contact with the Earth, for reasons of their own. Walk barefoot on the ground and stay in touch with the source of life.

Well now it’s time for science to get into the act. As it turns out, there’s an actual physical-biological connection between dirt and performance. We’ve known for a long time that contact with soil bacteria primes the immune system to “learn” about foreign pathogens. This “hygiene hypothesis” suggests that our modern super-clean, insulated style of living is actually dangerous for our bodies and may promote diseases such as asthma.

But it’s more than just immunity. Two recent studies have found strong associations between dirt and mental performance. Mycobacterium vaccae is a natural soil bacterium that appears to increase cognitive performance in rodents, probably by affecting the serotonin system. It also appears to elevate mood, similar to the effect of an anti-depressant.

“Can Bacteria Make You Smarter?” ScienceDaily (May 25, 2010)

“Getting Dirty May Lift Your Mood” ScienceDaily (Apr. 10, 2007)

Of course, from a natural-history perspective, this all fits. Since humans evolved in high-touch natural environments, it makes sense to suppose that our bodies would be massively connected to the microbial world. When we sever that contact as we’ve done with modern barriers and insulation, we should not be surprised to find a wide-range of negative effects on our bodies. These discoveries are just the beginning.

So take your shoes off and do some barefooting this summer. Your body wants dirt.

By now, many you will have read the intriguing piece in the May 3rd New York Times, My Left Foot: The High Costs of Fallen Arches. It’s a detailed account of one man’s battle with flat feet and the extensive corrective surgery that he endured to return his body to “normal.”

There is so much to say about this piece that it’s almost impossible to know where to begin. The questions just leap off the page: How did the author get to such a state that “required” massive surgical intervention on both feet? There is no mention of attempts at barefooting or other functional rehab approaches. So why the rush to surgery? Why the assumption that the supposed structural abnormality was the cause of the patient’s pain? Isn’t there a normal variation in foot arch? How would this person have fared in prehistory?

Depending on your perspective, this story is either a) a dramatic example of the success of modern medicine or b) a dramatic example of medicine gone completely off the rails.

I have my own opinions on this of course, but I want to hear yours.

Please comment.

“The smaller we come to feel ourselves compared to the mountain, the nearer we come to participating in its greatness.”
Arne Naess

The ground under my feet feels solid now, but they tell me it’s really an illusion and a failure to appreciate the bigger terrestrial picture. What’s actually happening is a highly dynamic process. That apparently solid earth beneath my feet is just a huge tectonic surfboard, floating on a vast sea of molten rock a thousand miles below. I’m not actually standing still, but rather surfing on a vast, slow motion planetary wave, trying my best to keep my balance, my grace and my purpose.

And it’s good to know how to surf, because you never really know what that dynamism will bring and where that tectonic wave might take you. All it takes is one small shift of direction, a subtle change in pressure or momentum, and your world can change, maybe forever.

Of course, I had no thought of any of this as I sat in my window seat at 30,000 feet, staring out at the vast expanse of the North Atlantic. According to my ticket, I was bound for London, where I was to deliver a two-day seminar at WildFitness. I was prepped and ready to share my thoughts and movements. My slide show was honed, my material ready for prime time. Aside from the usual drudgery of air travel, I was feeling good; everything seemed to be in order.

Suddenly, the captain’s voice shook me out of my daydream, but instead of the usual monotonous directive to keep my seat belt fastened, there was something new, a word I had never heard on an aircraft before: volcano. My ears perked up; this was novel, exciting and potentially very disruptive. As details began to emerge, I realized that our flight was being diverted to Paris. A massive dust cloud had blanketed the entire region and all of UK airspace was now officially closed until further notice.

I could only guess at the details, but it was surely a tectonic drama: the North Atlantic plate had just moved a few inches further into its subduction zone, slipping, driving and pressurizing the deep roots of Iceland. A trillion tons of mass collided with an immovable object of planetary dimensions and something just had to give. And so the volcano did its job, relieving the pressure by ejecting a monstrous dust cloud, oblivious to the consequences for aircraft engines, human travel schedules and the seminar plans of health educators.

This diversion would be a major inconvenience, of course. I would have to navigate more airports, more ground transport, more delay and uncertainty. But it all seemed somehow fitting, given my history of travel to the UK. Just last year, I had made a farcical journey from Seattle to London where I was rudely deported on a paperwork technicality. The similarities were clear: As a ponderous and immoveable force, UK Border “Service” falls into the same category as volcanoes and other natural forces. Both are capricious and inexplicable, following their own laws in their own time. And so, it turned out that I was paradoxically prepared for this new challenge: Having dealt with UK immigration, I was ideally suited to spar with the volcano.

In the end, I successfully navigated both UK Border Control and the volcano. The WildFitness event was a tremendous success, marred only by the fact that some participants were rebuked by the dust cloud and had their flights canceled. We played hard, studied hard and celebrated a new tribe of exuberants.

Of course, it might have gone the other way entirely. The volcano might have completely derailed our plans: It might have doubled its output and blanketed the entire continent. A shift in the jetstream might have kept the dust cloud centered directly over the UK. Administrators in charge of UK airspace might have prevailed over airline executives and kept the airports closed for weeks or months. Fine-grained dust might have brought down dozens of aircraft, sending the entire system into chaos. Things might have turned out very differently. Things might have been extremely unpleasant.

The scale and power of the volcano struck many of us as a reminder of human insignificance. It also demonstrated how incredibly vulnerable the modern world is in the face of natural forces. For all our innovation, infrastructure and power tools, we are at considerable risk. Our cities and systems are built for average conditions, not the wild swings that the biosphere can throw our way. This volcano, disruptive as it was, was really a minor planetary event. The biosphere is capable of much more powerful inconveniences.

Now that air travel has returned to “normal,” most of us have already forgotten the volcano and its potential. But there are important lessons here that we would do well to keep in mind. First, now would be a good time to revisit our studies of self-reliance: basic skills, functional knowledge, simple tools and knowledge of land and community will always be good back-ups that can serve us well in times of chaos. Second, a sense of proportion is essential; a canceled or delayed flight is nothing in comparison to genuine disaster. Finally, we’d do well to remember that we’re really just minor players in a highly dynamic world. For all our intelligence, knowledge and expertise, we’re just as vulnerable to the whims of the biosphere as any other species. The primary rule of ecology remains the same as it ever was: “Nature bats last.”

“If not for sex, much of what is flamboyant and beautiful in nature would not exist. Plants would not bloom. Birds would not sing. Deer would not sprout antlers. Hearts would not beat so fast. But ask an assortment of creatures, what is sex? and they will give you very different answers.”

Olivia Judson
Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice To All Creation

In the belly of the furnace of creativity is a sexual fire; the flames twine about each other in fear and delight.  The same sort of coiling, at a cooler, slower pace, is what the life of this planet looks like.  The enormous spirals of typhoons, the twists and turns of mountain ranges and gorges, the waves and the deep ocean currents – a dragonlike writhing.

Gary Snyder A Place in Space

Don’t worry, it only seems kinky the first time.

Unknown

If you ever make it up to the Pacific Northwest with an interest in getting back to the fundamentals of primal living, be sure to look up a character called the Barefoot Sensei. The Sensei is a powerful and authentic teacher, a visionary of body, land and foot.

The first time I heard the Sensei speak around a campfire, I became entranced as he delivered an intriguing set of stories, opinions and visions, most of them crafted around the themes of bare feet, land, earth, training and activism. The conversation danced like the flames of the fire. Light faded and stars appeared as the tribe gathered around. Stories came and went, but Sensei held center stage.

After a string of compelling and often hilarious narrative, Sensei became philosophical and began to speak of his personal dream and life trajectory. He promised us that someday soon, he’d be “going back, deep into the wild.”

We waited for more and passed the bottle around, anticipating the explanation that was sure to come.

“I’m headed out,” he told us, “back into the wild. I’ve got everything I need. I’m going to foot the path into the wilderness and have an orgasm with the earth.”

Suddenly, my attention jumped to a whole new level. Never having heard this expression before, my curiosity exploded. “Wait!” I nearly shouted. “What are you getting at? How can you have an orgasm with the earth? And more importantly, how can I have one?”

getting down

Some will dismiss the Sensei’s phrase as a bit of hippie hyperbole, a wild-man fantasy with an erotic twist. But it’s not. The Sensei has done it before and he fully intends to do it again. I have no doubt that this experience is real for him and for others as well. But still, we need to–excuse the language–go deeper and find out what this idea is all about. Undoubtedly, some of us will need an explanation and/or an instruction manual.

So the question before us: what is an “orgasm with the earth?” What is this “earth lust?” Is it sex with the biosphere, our bioregion, this land, this habitat? Is it natural? Is it normal? How do we do it? And most importantly of all, is it hot?

What’s that you say? You’ve never had an orgasm with the earth? You’re kidding, right? Surely you must have at least done some heavy petting with the goddess. You must have done a backpack trip into the mountains or a day hike to a high peak. You must have felt the summer breeze on your skin, the glow in your flesh and the intoxication of your spirit. If not, this is something that you must do, and soon.

If this sounds preposterous to you, think again. When you get right down to it, sex with people and sex with the earth aren’t really all that different. There’s the romance, the anticipation, the first touch, the arousal and the immersion. There’s the sensual contact and the virtuous circle of touching and being touched. There’s a sense of safety and comfort, danger and exhilaration. The physical body rises, bringing forth deep primal memories and unification with all of life itself. If you can do one kind of sex, you can do the other.

my first time

For my part, I can vividly recall a number of earth-shattering earth-orgasms, mostly from my days as a climber in the mountains of California. Climbing, like many outdoor sports, is all about getting your body into intimate contact with the natural, tactile world. Exposure promotes vivid sensation, anticipation and engagement. Gravity provides focus and sharpens attention to the here and now. Tactile awareness deepens as fingers and toes probe for subtle variations in form and texture. Skin becomes alert and aware. Every sense comes alive, passionate, desiring ever more. Long summer days of perfect rock, perfect weather, powerful physicality and the sweet caress of a gentle breeze.

There was usually a climax of course, when we reached the safety and panorama of the summit, but this was but a single orgasmic moment surrounded by hours of caress and erotic pleasure. Even the moonlight descent, with our bodies scraped, bruised and fatigued by our efforts, was sensual magic, a feast for eyes, ears and spirit. Only when we reached the highway would the spell be broken.

Later, I began to realize that climbing, for all its intensity and exposure, wasn’t really necessary to achieve an earth orgasm. In fact, simply walking through the high country of Yosemite usually gave me a similar result. The intoxicating air of summer, the gently erotic curves of the granite domes, the sweet, fresh water that coursed down creek beds into soft inviting meadows, the subtle and revealing light that played across the alpine vistas: there was enough arousal here for anyone with sensation and attention. My skin, my senses and my spirit would always quicken in anticipation. All I cared about was deeper engagement.

John Muir knew it all along of course, this sensual passion for the natural world, especially the Sierras. How else shall we describe his prose?

“The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”

for the love of life

For many, the popular archetype of Earth is female, and some might suppose that it’s only men who would be lured into her arms. But when speaking of earth lust, there’s no need to discriminate by gender, one way or the other. All people, of any sexual persuasion, can find erotic love in nature’s body. Male or female, straight or gay, all can become passionate about the charms of the biosphere, the land and habitat. Many call her “the goddess Gaia” and assume her to be female, but we can use any gender label we like. The biophilic impulse is really pan-sexual. We can all find pleasure here, no matter which pronoun we happen to choose.

Of course, you might want to dismiss this entire line of inquiry as the lunatic raving of hippie philosophers gone mad. But no less a figure than E.O. Wilson has championed a similar, slightly less erotic idea, one he calls biophilia. Wilson is no hippie or pornographer. In fact, he is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. As of 2007, he was the Pellegrino University Research Professor in Entomology for the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism. Wilson is not a person given to rash, impulsive carnal speculation.

When all dressed up in asexual academic language, the term biophilia (literally “love of life”) refers our “innate tendency to affiliate with other living creatures and processes.” Of course, Wilson wasn’t explicitly erotic about his biophilia. (given his views on sociobiology, he attracted enough controversy as it was.) But my guess is that if we could get him around the campfire in the company of a few friends and under the influence of the right libations, he would confess to knowing exactly what we’re talking about.

When E.O. Wilson talks about biophilia, he’s talking about a deep physical, primal need for contact. Just as social animals have a strong need to maintain contact with their fellows, so too do we have a drive to touch our living environment. What our bodies want is contact with plants, animals, rolling terrain and open sky. Our senses crave this stuff. We need to smell the land, touch the dirt with our bare feet, feel the textures of the plants, see the movement of the animals, and feel the wind on our faces.

Massage therapists often speak of the power of touch in human health. We know, for example, that infants who are touched frequently grow larger and healthier, while infants who are touch-deprived fail to develop normally. As social animals, we thrive on physical human contact, but there seems to be an even wider need that goes beyond our species. We need to touch, smell and see living things of all varieties; in a sense, we need to be massaged by the natural world. We need to be massaged by driving rain, blinding sun, steep terrain and long distances.
health and biophilia

Nature contact is a powerful driver of human health. Hospital studies show that patients with a window view of trees in a natural setting had shorter post-operative stays, fewer complications and requested less pain medication than those who had a view of a brick wall. And we have all heard about the beneficial effects of pets on sick human patients. It is obvious that contact with trees, dirt, rocks and animals is good for us.

In The Biophilia Hypothesis, Roger Ulrich reviewed studies of human landscape preference and found that “observers prefer forest settings having some similarities to savanna-like or parklike settings, including visual openness and uniform ground cover associated with large-diameter mature trees and relatively small amounts of slash and downed wood.” Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we seem to prefer landscapes that offer easy bipedal living.

Ulrich also cites studies analyzing the effects of outdoor scenes on stressed individuals. His findings suggest that “viewing unthreatening landscapes tends to produce faster and more complete restoration from stress than does viewing unblighted urban or built environments lacking nature.” Apparently, natural settings tend to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, that branch of the nervous system associated with rejuvenation and tissue repair. One hospital study found that patients exposed to “serene” landscape pictures showed significant reductions in blood pressure. Another study suggested that patients responded more positively to wall art dominated by natural content, but tended to react negatively to abstract painting and prints. A prison study found that inmates with a view towards nearby farms and forests were less likely to report for sick call than those whose cell windows faced the prison yard.

primate’s predicament

Sadly, one thing is obvious: We, as a culture, are just not getting enough earth sex and we aren’t having enough orgasms with the biosphere. I have no way to quantify this claim, but there can be no doubt that modern Americans are suffering an acute earth-sex drought. With millions of people chained to their desks, incarcerated in their cars and stressed to the absolute limit, it seems increasingly unlikely that people are having sex of any variety, much less passionate lust in the arms of the earth.

This may sound like an overstatement, but it actually constitutes a genuine public health emergency. After all, you probably know how it goes when you’re going through a conventional sex drought: anxiety and frustration become acute, distraction becomes constant, health and exuberance begin to suffer. The urge to merge pushes itself into consciousness thousands of times each day. You can’t work, you can’t think and you’re eventually forced into cheap alternatives that are completely without heart or soul. Similar symptoms are certain to arise when we go through an earthsex drought. Just look at modern popular culture.

sex ed

“She will not come to you gliding through the yielding air; the fair one that suits must be sought…”
Ovid

Unfortunately, our culture is suffering from an epidemic of erotic amnesia; we’ve forgotten our primal passion for the natural world. And even among those who have retained the simmering lust, the basic skills are often lacking. Obviously, it’s time for some remedial education; it’s time for earthsex ed. So let’s begin at the beginning; what are the basics?

First of all, you’ll want to begin with the art of foreplay. The earth goddess doesn’t reveal her charms without some seduction and effort. You can’t just show up and start fooling around; you need a time for transition, anticipation and romance.

So set the time aside, away from the regular distractions in your life. Block off your calendar, protect some sacred space. Give this priority. Then, once you’re committed, start your preparation. Wear the right clothes, assemble your provisions and plan your route. Set the mood and pay close attention to your lover. Be quiet and observant of detail.

As the engagement begins, move towards embrace. If you’re going to have an orgasm with the earth, you’ve got to put your body out there. You’ve got to expose yourself. You’ve got to make yourself vulnerable and you’ve got to be, in some sense, naked. This doesn’t necessarily mean stripping off your clothing, although it might. What it really means is getting away from the thickest forms of urban insulation: the comfortable housing, the climate-controlled automobiles and all the electronic mechanisms that stand between our bodies and the body of the earth. Urban insulation, when carried to its logical conclusion, acts as a triple-layer condom, deadening sensation and making orgasm all but impossible.

Good earth sex is highly physical to be sure, but it’s much more than just a physical act. Sure, you can drop into nature in a helicopter or on a cruise ship. You can fly over her gorgeous body in a small airplane or gawk at her wonders from the safety of a Land Rover. But while these methods may in fact give you a quick burst of excitement, they lack commitment and intimacy. There’s little risk, little engagement; they are little more than voyeurism.

In fact, most of our modern attempts to love the earth amount to little more than pathetic phone sex. Lacking time or interest in an authentic act of engagement, we simply cue up a BBC nature special on the DVD player or dial in something on the Discovery Channel. And there we’re treated to the leaping whales, the blood-thirsty predators, the time-lapsed glory of Gaia’s naked flesh, all with remote control in hand. A few minutes of this “action” brings us to a pathetic faux orgasm and a return to the sports network or the refrigerator.

To have a truly meaningful orgasm with the earth, you’ve got to get your feet on the ground and your body into the action. Intimacy means involvement. If you want to really get intimate, you’re going to have to do more than fire off a quick email or click on a couple of links. You have to be here, now. This means physical commitment. And that means time.

Naturally, when it comes to earthsex, position is of supreme importance. The standard choices–deep valleys and high mountain ridges–are excellent of course, but don’t limit yourself. Keep your mind open to terrain, light and landform. It’s all about relationship. Anticipate the changing light, the flow of the clouds and weather, the changes in sound and the movements of animals. If a new position draws you, move towards it strongly, but without force. Keep listening and feeling your lover’s moods; the land may suggest a new position, so be ready to adapt.

No matter the position, go towards your lover with a balanced physicality and spirit: strong-soft, powerful-adaptable, eager-patient. You are intent, you are passionate, you are absorbed. But you are also gentle, kind, compassionate and patient. You can be strong but you can yield, always deepening connection, contact and embrace of the divine. The more balanced your spirit, the more you can give, the more you can receive.

just do it!

As most people now realize, conventional sex is a powerfully health-positive experience. Even the most conservative medical publications tell us that sex relieves stress, boosts immunity, burns calories, improves cardiovascular health, boosts self-esteem and reduces pain.

The prescription is clear; sex is good for your health. It’s even better if you do it with people you love. It’ll lower your blood pressure, normalize your stress response, activate your parasympathetic nervous system and help you sleep. For these reasons, physicians now routinely advocate more sex for their patients.

Of course, most physicians are prescribing conventional “sex with people” and have yet to take it to the logical next level. But that may change. As more and more experts begin to understand the dramatically health-positive effects of biophilia and nature contact, they may very well expand their recommendations. They may just start telling their patients to spend more time in natural settings, getting their bodies into intimate contact with wild habitat, dirt, plants, animals, rocks and water.

It won’t be long before they’re writing prescriptions that say “Go outside and have an orgasm with the earth.”

“And call me in the morning. I want to hear how it went.”

Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don’t need to be done.
Andy Rooney

The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.
Sydney J. Harris

You are my creator, but I am your master.
Frankenstein
Mary Shelly

You may be surprised to hear this, but I hate my Mac.
I hate everything about it.
It has all the things I loathe in a computer. It’s fast, it has a huge memory capacity and it runs all the major applications smoothly and efficiently. It hardly ever crashes and I can take it everywhere I go. The battery lasts a long time and I can plug it in and get the Internet just about anywhere. The OS is sleek and easy to operate.
“So what’s to hate?” you’re sure to ask. “Isn’t this precisely what people are looking for in a computer?”
Actually, the “success” of my computer is precisely what I dislike about it. Not only does it perform the essential functions that I need to make my way in the modern world, it also performs thousands of non-essential functions that I can just as well do without. But it’s all so easy, my laptop sucks me into projects that don’t really need to be done and lures me into tasks that don’t really need to be addressed. It keeps my vision centered on a single point in space and keeps my posture in a static position. Worst of all, it keeps me indoors and destroys my relationship with the natural world. Slowly but surely, my Mac is killing me, sapping my vitality and distorting my relationship with the real world.
The first Macintosh was introduced in January, 1984, the first commercially viable personal computer to feature a mouse and a graphical user interface. But now, as we look back, we find that the bright and shining promise of the digital age is turning out to be a delusion and the dark side is becoming more apparent with every passing day. Some of us are now beginning to realize the truth–that the only thing worse that a slow computer is a fast computer. The only thing worse than Windows is Snow Leopard. The only thing worse than Snow Leopard is Word Press. And the only thing worse than Word Press is the iPhone. And the only thing worse than the iPhone is Facebook. And the only thing worse than Facebook is Twitter. It’s all distraction, diversion and delusion.

labor generation

Back at the dawn of the digital age, “visionaries” claimed that the computer would be a highly effective labor-saving device that would free us from untold hours of drudgery. No longer would we be shackled to our desks, writing down numbers and words by hand until the middle of the night. We’d be granted a wide open vista of easy living, free to pursue our favorite leisures, hobbies and fascinations.
Boy, were they off the mark. If the computer is anything, it’s a labor-generating device, a labor multiplier. By virtue of its multi-function capability, it actually gives us more work to do than we would otherwise have. All computers have done for us is to replace one kind of drudgery with another, less physical form. Surely some of us have been freed from some types of repetitive labor, but for every case of technological liberation, we’ve created a hundred cases of technological enslavement. As computing technology has invaded every last corner of human activity, even the smallest acts of physicality have been stolen from our lives.
Techno entrepreneurs like to call this “innovation,” but its really more of “technological incarceration.” In fact, we can be sure that the felons in the big house actually go out to the exercise yard once a day, while the rest of us stay glued to our screens for weeks, months, years and decades.
Computers remove the body from almost every creative process. I could take notes by hand, but the machine is more efficient. I could make a sketch to illustrate what I’m trying to say, but the machine is faster. I could walk down the hall and have an actual conversation with a real person, but it’s easier to simply text. Little by little, our bodies are removed from every process and every profession. As physicality becomes increasingly irrelevant, we become disembodied brains. In the process, our health and vitality disappear. In the end, the “digital lifestyle” is turning out to be more of a “deathstyle.”
The disembodying effect of computers becomes ever more powerful as the technology becomes easier to use. Direct mental control of the cursor is only a few years away and then where will we be? No need to even push the mouse; just direct your concentration at the pixels in question. The “innovators” will tell us that this will make our lives “easier” but why should we accept this claim? This “innovation” will be yet one more nail in the coffin of the human body and the human spirit.

amusing ourselves to death

It would be one thing if we had the discipline to use our computers strictly as labor-saving tools. It would be one thing if we used them to streamline our lives and free us to live some authentic dream of true experience. But no, we use our digital devices, not as tools to free ourselves, but as a place to go when the outside world becomes unpleasant, onerous or confusing. Like drunks seeking comfort in the bottom of a bottle, we compulsively lunge for our keyboards, ready to escape whatever it is that ails us. Once logged in, we are free to loose ourselves in a bottomless world of visual distraction.
Ultimately, we find ourselves on a path towards addiction and denial of the world around us. As amusement machines, computers pave the way for decreased engagement with the natural world as they distract us from matters of genuine importance. This is a trend forshadowed most notably by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World (1932), but also by media pundit Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985).
Sitting at the computer has become the default position for “work,” or more correctly, the “apparent work.” For those who don’t know what to do with their time but who want to appear busy, the computer is the perfect hide-out. As long as you keep looking at your display, you’re safe. No one can call you a slacker if your eyeballs are glued to the screen and your hand is on the mouse. How many millions of people hide out in front of the keyboard each day? How many hours are wasted in digital posing? Is the computer the new ostrich hole for the overwhelmed and stressed-out modern?

opportunity costs

Computers are bad enough in what they do to us directly, but they also extract a toll by displacing vital, health-giving life experience. Like junk food that displaces genuine nutrition, computers displace essential human experience and engagement with land, animals and people. Even if computers were entirely neutral in their effect (they are not), they would still harm us by taking us away from our bodies, the natural world and face-to-face interactions with real people.
In the world of economics, opportunity cost is the value of the next best alternative that is forgone as the result of making a decision. If, for example, you spend time and money going to a movie, you cannot spend that time at home reading a book. If your next-best alternative to seeing the movie is reading the book, then the opportunity cost of seeing the movie is the money spent plus the pleasure you forgo by not reading the book. All decisions have opportunity costs, computer use included.

“smart phones” aren’t

Of course, no diatribe against computers would be complete without a shot at the so-called “smart phone” industry. Supposedly, these devices “liberate” us from our desks and the need to be “tied down” to any particular place.
But connection to place has been an integral part of human experience for the vast majority of our time on earth. Every primal culture has embedded itself in land and habitat with sensation, action, narrative, song and culture. Separating ourselves from the land is a radical act, an experiment, a shot in the dark. We simply have no idea what “freeing ourselves” from the land will do to body and spirit. Epidemics of attention problems suggest we are making a big mistake.
We can observe the dislocating effects of “smart phones” by watching the spectacular inattentiveness of pedestrians on the street. Cell phone users become nearly blind to their surroundings, oblivious to danger, sight and ambient sound. Public health officials have now documented an increasing number of cases in which pedestrians have been involved in auto accidents, their spatial and situational awareness blinded by the cell phone.
Just as the desktop computer sucks the life out of our muscles, “smart phones” suck the life out of our senses, our awareness of place and our ability to interact with other people in face-to-face settings. The actual damage may seem insignificant, but the displacement costs are immense. Every hour on the “smart phone” means one hour less in conversation or engagement with the real world. It means one hour less experience in realms that have defined human life for millions of years. And in this respect, these digital devices steal our humanity and our lives.

warning labels

The time has come to re-classify the computer industry and label it for what it really is. Some nutritional activists have advanced the notion that high-fructose corn syrup and trans-fats are “the new tobacco.” Maybe so. But it’s time to realize that computers belong in the same category. Apple, Google and Microsoft are wrecking our bodies just as efficiently as RJR Reynolds and Coke. Maybe we need to start talking about “digital tobacco.” Instead of worshipping Apple, Google and Microsoft as our saviors, maybe we should start talking about the hazards of “Big Digital.” And yes, maybe it’s time to start organizing a class action suit against corporations who peddles these products to consumers, with harsh penalties for those who promote “the digital lifestyle” to kids.
This is not hyperbole. This is not satire. It is no exaggeration to say that computers constitute a genuine public health hazard. And so, the comparison becomes inevitable: All computer products–hardware and software alike–ought to come with warning labels: “Long-term use of this product will cause sedentary behavior and will contribute to a host of lifestyle diseases including obesity, diabetes, heart disease and physical apathy. Use sparingly.” You think I’m kidding? The day will come.

computer ed reconsidered

When we take a hard look at the pathological effects of computers, we begin to realize that our educational institutions are completely missing the point. That is, most schools and colleges now operate under the unquestioned assumption that it is essential to “teach students how to use computers.” And so we see entire curriculums built around digital “how-to.” No one doubts this sort of educational offering; every institution now boasts dozens of computer classes at every level.
But given what we know about the health-negative effects of sitting for weeks, months and years in front of a keyboard, our educational objective really ought to be reversed. In other words, our goal should be to “Teach students how to not use computers.” In other words, we ought to teach students the intelligent use of digital devices. Students must learn to ask the right questions: What are computers good for? When is it appropriate to use a computer? What are the drawbacks? When is it better to use traditional materials? When is it better to simply turn away?

triage

Of course, this whole discussion poses a nasty conundrum. Computers, for all their body-sucking, health-destroying qualities, are not going away any time soon. Our culture has become so infected with digititis that escape now seems nearly impossible. If we want to get anything done in this world, we have to sit down and drive the mouse; even the most committed Luddite must spend some time at the keyboard if he is to have any chance of relevance.
And so, it’s time to make some hard decisions about what we’re going to do with all those digital tools in our lives. Shall we be the masters or the slaves?
The problem is difficult, but not unsolvable. There are things that we can and must do:
First, look to eliminate all the trivial and optional amusements that are now possible on the computer. Start by abandoning the “fake work” that is so popular in modern homes and offices. This includes all the optional tasks that really don’t need to be done: downloading cute icons, fine-tuning your screen saver and over-clocking your processor are things that can wait.
Just as obviously, the games have got to go. There’s simply no justifiable reason to be playing a computer game when there’s so many other kinds of games that we could be playing. Computer games not only wreck our bodies, they steal the very soul of human imagination.
Next, eliminate those projects that, however valuable, will become sink holes of time and effort. Sure, you could launch a new website with lots of engaging content, like videos of your cat. But that will take hundreds of hours and worse yet, the “success” of your site will only serve to suck your readers deeper into their own digital morass.
Instead, reserve your computer time for those projects and tasks that hold some prospect for genuine advancement of your essential interests. Treat your time on the computer as if it were costly. What if you had to pay $100 per hour for time on the keyboard? Wouldn’t that bring a little focus to your efforts?
When it comes to allocating computer time, it pays to be ruthless. Ask yourself:
Do I really need to be sitting here at this machine?
Am I sitting at the keyboard to advance some essential task that will enhance the quality of my life?
Or am I trying to look busy?
Am I making some kind of difference in the world or am I simply avoiding some difficult challenge?
Finally, when you’ve run out of options and are forced to push the mouse, make your screen time as short as possible. Do this by learning the programs and polishing your skills. Learn the key strokes. Find the work-arounds. Buy whatever code you need to make it go smoother, but triage that too. Don’t spend 5 hours learning a program that will save you 3 mouse clicks. It just isn’t worth it.
And one more thing: think twice about heaping digital work on your friends and colleagues. Sure, it’s easy to send out links to bottomless web pages and interminable YouTube videos, but what kind of favor is that? All you’ve done is instill a sense of obligation for your friends to remain locked onto the screen. If you really want to do your friends and colleagues a favor, let them get back to some kind of authentic human experience.

computers aren’t us

Triage, skill and discretion are essential, but these are only steps in the right direction. What we really need is to change our basic relationship with the digital realm. Most importantly, we have to stop identifying with computers, operating systems, digital devices or for that matter, any consumer product or corporation. To say, “I’m a Mac guy” is just as perverse as saying “I’m a Windows guy.”
Stand up for your humanity. You are an animal, not an OS. You are a flesh and blood creature, not a brain on a chip. You are a wild and creative spirit, not a batch of code to be run on command.
Get your identity straight.
The computer is a mere tool and a dangerous one at that.
Save yourself.
Stand up for your life.
Step away from the machine.

“We may not pay Satan reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talent.”
Mark Twain

I never thought it would come to this. As a child I was active, healthy and fit as anyone, but somehow I let my body get away from me. It must have started back in college. All those late lights filled with endless rounds of pizza and beer, those long hours in front of the computer, the movies, the road trips, the sedentary living. There was always an excuse to avoid exercise; miles and miles of homework, papers, tests to study for, people to talk to, parties to attend. Somehow, I lost my fitness. Time caught up with me.
So there I was, poised on the brink of my 30th birthday, a poster-child for sloth and gluttony. No exercise in months, scarcely a physical memory to draw upon. The last time I broke a sweat was with…what was her name? In the back of my SUV… Well, it didn’t matter, there I was, fat, out of shape, lazy and lethargic. My clothes didn’t fit and my girlfriend left me, said I just wasn’t very exciting anymore. Not only that, but my doctor told me I had better get my ass down to the gym. My numbers were borderline, he said. It was time to rally, time to get my body back.
And so I signed up at the local gym. I bought the pro membership, the new workout clothes and enough supplements to feed an elephant for a year. I loaded up my iPod with high-energy rock and charged through the door. I was amped and ready to move.
Unfortunately, things went downhill pretty fast. After the first week, I was so sore I could hardly get out of bed. My trainer adjusted my sets and reps, gave me a new protein shake and some words of encouragement, but that was about it.
In the weeks that followed I tried everything to get on track. I adjusted my program, tried some new machines, tweaked my spreadsheet every which way. I read all the magazines, all the websites and followed every Facebook suggestion.
No results: all I had to show for it was a bad attitude.
Somehow I endured the frustration for a couple of months, and then one day, everything took a turn. The day started like any other– my robotic, comatose trip to the gym, my grim determination to gut out another session, like it or not, and my usual excuses for a lackluster performance.
As usual, I pushed myself through a warmup on the treadmill and staggered over to the bench and grabbed a couple of dumbbells. Lying down, I took a big breath, dreading the effort to come. Lamely, I pushed the weight up towards the ceiling, but my heart just wasn’t in it. The looming mass wobbled above my head, threatening collapse and traumatic head injury. Muscle failure came early this day and I failed to complete the reps that I had done just one week before. I sat up on the bench, racked the weights and sat back down. Depressed, I hung my head, hoping for a way out of this doldrums.
“Frustrated?”
Curious and ready for any distraction, I sat up and looked towards the voice.
Before me stood a figure of incomparable athletic stature, a chiseled marvel of muscle dressed in black pants and a tight fitting red shirt. He looked like a cross between George Clooney and Michael Jordan. His body was part decathlete, part bodybuilder, but with an unmistakable air of royalty. His posture was superb. His body fat must have been less than 1%. He had a full head of hair and a sparkle in his eye.
He was flanked on his right by a woman of strikingly improbable beauty. She looked like an Olympic figure skater, but was pleasantly buff in all the right places; she must have stepped right off the cover of a magazine.
I had noticed him before, of course. His powers in the gym were legendary. He always went to the heavy end of the dumbbell rack and hoisted the big units without grimace or grunt. Most remarkable of all, he never seemed to break a sweat, no matter how outrageous his physical achievement. Even in the midst of summer, sprinting stadium stairs at high noon. While every other trainer staggered on the verge of heat exhaustion, he just smiled with a glint of moisture on his forehead.
“So tell me, how’s your training going?” he asked. “Seems like you could use some help.”
“Yeah, you know, I just can’t take this, this body anymore. This fat, this weakness. I just hate myself. I’d do anything to get back on track.”
“Have you tried adjusting your diet? Your training program?
“Oh yeah,” I replied. “Every protein shake in the book, every periodized combination, every machine, every trainer. None of it seems to make any difference. “I’d give anything to get in shape…”
“Oh really? Anything?”
“Oh yeah,” I nodded. “The time has come to make a change.”
“You’re sure about this? You’re really willing to do whatever it takes?”
“Yes, absolutely, I’m ready. Whatever I need to do, that’s what I’m going to do.”
He leaned in closer to me now, locking his eyes onto mine and extending his hand. “Deal,” he said. “It’s all yours.”
I stared at his hand, unable to comprehend his intent. Was this guy a kook or what?
Without really knowing why, I offered my hand and shook, but instantly regretted it. His grasp was not just firm, it was crushing. I could feel my carpal bones fusing and at the same moment, a wave of nausea swept through my body as I broke into a cold sweat. My body went weak and I thought I might pass out. I struggled to withdraw my hand, but he maintained the grip, even increasing its strength before finally releasing it with a grand and glorious smile. His brilliant, perfect teeth gleamed at me and he winked.
Shaken, I excused myself awkwardly and headed for the showers. That was enough for today, I thought. Maybe I just needed a rest day.
That night, I slept peacefully and the next morning, I woke up early feeling not just refreshed, but completely rejuvenated. And inexplicably, I felt a compelling urge to head directly back to the gym. No morning stupor, no lassitude–I felt curiously strong and couldn’t wait to hit the weights and the cardio.
That morning I hit it harder than I ever had. I achieved personal bests across the board, in both strength and endurance. It seemed that I had made a quantum leap in performance, almost without trying. My body was energized and my mind was hungry for new challenges. After three hours in the gym I headed home, but I could have done more.
Over the next few weeks, I watched in amazement as my body inexplicably transformed itself. I lost pounds and inches almost every day and then started to add muscle to my frame. I could almost see the changes overnight.
My body was changing so fast, I was forced to go shopping for new clothes almost every week. At the beginning it was new pants with narrower waists, but eventually I had to have all my clothes custom made. My shoulders were getting too big for any off-the-rank clothing.
It wasn’t long before I became the talk of the gym. Even the most powerful lifters and cardio extremists began to comment on my spectacular progress. Formerly a certifiable nobody, I was regularly consulted for training tips and motivational nuggets. Even the big dogs began coming to me for advice.
And then there were the women, the gorgeous vixens that began to stalk me everywhere I went. Formerly a social lightweight, I could scarcely keep them away from me. They called at all hours of the day and night, showed up at my apartment and delighted me with every sort of pleasure imaginable.
Not surprisingly, the gym manager was all over me as well. Delighted with my meteoric rise to fitness success, he hired me into his sales department and signed me up to do endorsements. Easy work. All I had to do was show up, pose for some pictures, and head back to the weights. I was rolling.
About the same time, my phone started ringing off the hook. Every equipment manufacturer wanted me to be a centerpiece in their marketing and promotion campaign. Their favorite machine was something called “the placebotron.” I had no idea what it was or why it was supposed to be so great, but I looked great next to it and the machine sold in record numbers.
The money from equipment sales was good, but the real action was in the world of supplements, and I was the newest star. My mug started showing up on posters, brochures and catalogs around the world. I began hocking the newest miracle weight-loss formula, a completely inert formula made from the pollen of gender-neutralized Amazonian tree fungus, endangered of course.
Then I got into the diet plans. I endorsed a formula that alternated high-carbohydrate and low-carbohydrate on Mondays and Wednesdays, with high-protein and low-fat diets on Tuesday and Thursdays. It was impossible to track of course, but fortunately, I was also selling the software package that made the whole thing comprehensible.
About the same time, I started endorsing another weight-loss formula. The stuff supposedly was made from goat livers from Tajikistan or someplace. As we pitched it, these goats were known for their ability to eat absolutely anything and still remain rail-thin. I had no idea if the stuff actually worked, but I could have cared less. The stuff sold like crazy and I was rolling in profit.
Not wanting to hang with the little people down at the club anymore, I had my own personal gym built for me by a exercise equipment manufacturer. It had everything, complete state-of-the-art machines, climate controls and cardio-theatre. Not that I ever used it much. What would be the point? Go and work out for nothing? How boring is that?
Along the way, I “authored” a series of health and fitness books, which is to say, my name appeared on the cover. I never actually wrote anything, but my publisher made it all possible; I spoke with my ghostwriter on the phone a couple of times and the next thing I knew, there it was on the NYT Bestseller list: Look at Me! physical perfection with zero effort. Reviewers fawned over my elegant prose and trainers adopted my methods without question.
And then of course, there was Oprah. As everyone knows, she had finally had enough of her regular trainer and her ballooning body. She wanted action and I was the inspiration. She had me on the show and pushed my book. Before the hour was out, I was a literary superstar.
In the months that followed, my life became a whirlwind of appearances, talk shows, keynote speeches and promotional events. I didn’t even have time to go to the gym anymore. Not that it mattered. I soon discovered that training was completely unnecessary for fitness, or health for that matter. I could go for months without a workout and my body continued to glow and grow.
Even more astounding, I found that I could eat and drink whatever I wanted, as much or as little as I liked. Self-discipline became completely unnecessary and I began to chow doughnuts, cheesecake, beer and wine with abandon. Huge meals, day or night. Fast food became a standard. I even began to smoke.
My doctor was astounded and my fans were mystified. Photos and video began to circulate around the Web. There I was, playing pool in the local bar, drinking pitchers of brew and looking like a million bucks. There I was, playing blackjack in Vegas, knocking back platters of refried bacon, chased with whisky shots, surrounded by babes. Critics complained about my status as a lame role model, but who could argue with my results? After all, my lifestyle only made me stronger.
By this time I was living in a gorgeous 10 bedroom crib up in the hills and driving a Hummer and flying the world in a Gulfstream. My body just wouldn’t fit anything else. I had no time for anyone who wasn’t in the game, anyone who couldn’t amuse me with something new. I had some old friends get in touch from time to time, but I let my agent take care of them.
My body was now at the peak of its power. I weighed in at 250 pounds and body fat was nearly immeasurable. I was off the chart on all standard medical measures of health. And on those few occasions when I bothered to show up in the gym, I set new records for whatever event I wanted. I could squat a thousand and run a sub-4 mile. My resting heart rate hovered about 30 beats per minute. My marathon time was around 2 hours and I would have done better if I hadn’t stopped at the pub. According to my doctor, I was officially 50 years old, but I lived in the body of a 20 year old. I showed no signs of aging or degeneration.
The pinnacle of my success came when I was invited to Stockholm to receive the newly-created Nobel prize for physical fitness. I could scarcely be bothered with such trivialities, but my agent insisted that I go. It was a crushing bore, with all the royalty, ceremonial dinners and the like: the King of Sweden was such a fag, I could hardly wait to get away.
When I returned to the US, I was gripped by a strange sense of malaise. I found myself bored and restless. My amusements were failing me and I began to wonder about the old days and my former self.
I’m not sure what inspired me, but I wandered down to my gym, flipped on the lights and wandered up and down the aisles. Posters, mirrors and trophies lined the hall, reminding me of the early days and my struggles with my body.
Suddenly I was shocked out of my reverie by a presence in the room. A figure stepped out of a corner and faced me directly. I was taken aback, but stammered “Who are you? What are…how did you get in here?”
Security was supposed to be tight in my compound, or so I had been told. I grabbed for my phone, only to find it dead in my hand.
“Who are you?” I asked again.
He seemed so calm, not like a criminal trespasser at all, not like a burglar caught in the act. The way he behaved, it was almost as if he felt he owned the place.
I moved towards him, ready to punch or grab, but something stopped me. This was too odd, too curious. I had to know.
“You mean you don’t recognize me?” the man asked, incredulous.
I stared, taken aback and speechless.
There was something familiar about him: his perfectly tailored suit of clothes, his full head of hair and his physique, similar in form to my own.
Just then, the memory flooded back to me in a shockwave. It was the man in my old gym, the athlete with the perfect body and the cold handshake. It was him! But how could that be? That was thirty years ago! And he looks exactly the same, not a day older and in perfect health.
I was lost for words. I opened my mouth, but was speechless.
The man was obviously amused by my state of confusion.
He laughed at my befuddlement, then shook his head.
“Why the surprise, my friend? Surely you knew that I’d be back one day to collect.”
“To collect?” I replied, not understanding what he was talking about.
“You know,” he explained. “The anything. You said that you’d give anything to be strong and fit and healthy. Surely you remember the deal?”
“Well, yeah, sure, but…”
“So, there you have it.”
He walked to the nearby squat rack and racked up some iron on the bar. His movements were swift and he handled the plates as if they were made of cardboard. He racked a few on each side, then gestured to me.
“Go ahead, please show me your form.”
Normally, such a weight would have been trivial in the extreme, less than a warm up for me.
“Go ahead” he insisted.
Furious at this insult to my dignity, I walked over, set my feet into position and reached for the bar. But just as my fingers wrapped around the cold steel, I felt an excruciating pain in my lower back. Racked, I fell to the floor, writhing like a harpooned shark. My breath came in ragged gasps as I struggled to control the pain. After a few moments I pushed myself to my feet and gasped once again as I caught sight of myself in the mirror. My body was no longer recognizable as my own: My figure was fat, lumpy and weak. My skin was wrinkled and my hair was almost completely gone. I groaned in pain and anguish.
The man merely laughed at my predicament. “Normally, when I conduct these sorts of transactions, there’s a lingering sense of dignity that I can collect on,” he said stepping in close to me.
“I came for your soul, but I can see that you’ve already given it away…Best of luck with your eternal damnation.”
And with that, he was gone.