on sports
mens sana in corpore sano [Thales of Miletus]
I have always had a sort of negative perspective; many of my friends criticized my gloomy outlook and recommended to take a more positive stance on life. I tried e.g. by reading and following Daniel Goleman's "Emotional Intelligence", where common traits of succeeding executive level corporate people are described and distilled into a new behavioral pattern, that should be juxtaposed to plain IQ, i.e. mostly abstract-logical intelligence. But I failed. I am not a winning, always cheering and emphatically listening to all worries of my fellow human being kind of guy. I have my own issues. And that's just how I am.
I later learned that this negative perspective had two, lets name it, pathological causes. For one my sickly physical nature as a child: I suffered from age 10-20 of severe asthma, that forced me to sleep sitting in an almost upright position. my short breath made sports almost impossible and caused me to grow pretty big in a period when looks are important to find some self-confidence: adolescence. deprived of the biggest of all childish joys that is foolishly running around to explore the world and how one's own body reacts on it, I did retreat to books at that time. The other cause can be found in a rather traumatic early childhood experience that left something like a scar on my emotional structure. I haven't done research on this topic, but although we claim that the heart is the seat of our emotions, and most truly feeling people will confirm, that they feel love, sorrow, hate, envy, etc in their heart, not in their brains, I am quite convinced that our emotional programming takes place in our brains only. The brain in my understanding works like a prism that breaks light. Some people are born with brains that seem to break all energy that flows through their bodies into myriads of beautifully shining colors. Others, me included, have brains, that do not only break light into light, but also into darkness.
Why am I writing about this, when I should be writing about sports? Well, in spite of my weak physical constitution in early years, I have learned to treasure sports more and more as a source of joy and cause of a splendid state of mind. Squash, alpine skiing & snowboarding, hiking, running, cycling, yoga and most recently kite surfing have turned into important pastimes. Exercise brings equilibrium to body and mind. Lack of exercise causes imbalance, easy irritation and lack of patience. A few years ago, my pneumologist, who had been treating me since more than 25 years, told me that if he looks back at his own experience as human being and as a physician, the most important, not so obvious factor for well-being is regular exercise. hence mens sana in corpore sano.
I later learned that this negative perspective had two, lets name it, pathological causes. For one my sickly physical nature as a child: I suffered from age 10-20 of severe asthma, that forced me to sleep sitting in an almost upright position. my short breath made sports almost impossible and caused me to grow pretty big in a period when looks are important to find some self-confidence: adolescence. deprived of the biggest of all childish joys that is foolishly running around to explore the world and how one's own body reacts on it, I did retreat to books at that time. The other cause can be found in a rather traumatic early childhood experience that left something like a scar on my emotional structure. I haven't done research on this topic, but although we claim that the heart is the seat of our emotions, and most truly feeling people will confirm, that they feel love, sorrow, hate, envy, etc in their heart, not in their brains, I am quite convinced that our emotional programming takes place in our brains only. The brain in my understanding works like a prism that breaks light. Some people are born with brains that seem to break all energy that flows through their bodies into myriads of beautifully shining colors. Others, me included, have brains, that do not only break light into light, but also into darkness.
Why am I writing about this, when I should be writing about sports? Well, in spite of my weak physical constitution in early years, I have learned to treasure sports more and more as a source of joy and cause of a splendid state of mind. Squash, alpine skiing & snowboarding, hiking, running, cycling, yoga and most recently kite surfing have turned into important pastimes. Exercise brings equilibrium to body and mind. Lack of exercise causes imbalance, easy irritation and lack of patience. A few years ago, my pneumologist, who had been treating me since more than 25 years, told me that if he looks back at his own experience as human being and as a physician, the most important, not so obvious factor for well-being is regular exercise. hence mens sana in corpore sano.