Tuesday, May 30, Chapter 31: Gwan Outside

GWAN OUTSIDE
Maybe it’s a beautiful day, maybe not. Gwan outside anyway. As in, go on outside. Walk out the door, look at the sky. Walk out the door and move down the sidewalk or the pathway or whatever you have out there, that will allow you to do that most human of activities: walk. Walk down the street, walk down the path, breathe some fresh air. If you are in the middle of a busy city, walk to a park. If you don’t live near a park worth walking to, move. Life that is totally dependant on cars to get us to someplace decent to walk is not worth living, in my opinionated opinion.

We came from nature, we are nature. This body thing is our small earth, and by breathing with awareness and sensing our spines and letting a little smile come to our faces, we light up the little Earth, but this spending all our time indoors is mentally unstable. Gyms are the most idiotic to me. Ride a bike that moves to a garden and dig dirt and push around wheelbarrows if you want to get strong, or walk to a park and do push ups. But to drive a car to a gym to get on a bike that goes nowhere in a noisy room full of mindless body building robots, what drivel.

Yoga, too, always indoors. Pilates. Dance. Feldenkrais, even, always indoors. Does this have to be? I don’t think so. Not when the weather is nice, and even when it’s a little uncomfortable, can we take a little responsibility for how much of the Earth is being wrecked for air conditioners because people can’t stand anything above 80 degrees, or for heating when it gets below 70? This is pretty sad when it’s all cars and controlled temperature and indoors. Is that really living? I don’t think so. What do you think?