I’m not sure exactly why January gets all the hoopla here. When it comes to change, it seems like winter (all right, not here in Southern California) might be the most difficult time of year for some people to take on serious change. Sure, after the excess of the holiday season people are feeling penitent. They’re also perhaps ready to accept some quiet, “inward” time after the social overkill of the previous weeks. And, of course, it’s cultural sentiment to look back fondly on the year, clink the glasses at midnight and envision a beautiful, better year ahead – a vision that holds our collective attention for about a week. Well-intentioned as it is, New Year’s motivation is too often a flash in the pan. Maybe little wonder. The winter weeks that follow – truly brutal in some areas of the country – can be as inspiring as scraping your windshield. While I’m all for making change whenever (Isn’t it always a good idea, regardless of the calendar?), I wonder if there isn’t something backwards about this typical scenario. Personally, I get to June and sense that a certain energy and rare enthusiasm are accessible again (not to mention the inviting weather, longer days and fresh markets). You can literally see it in people. Who doesn’t know what I mean here (those of you with standard seasons at least)? Doesn’t this seem like the perfect time to imagine something new and ambitious for yourself? Part challenge, part resolution, part bucket list, part self-experiment? Humor me on this path for a bit….
Read MoreMany of society’s favorite psychoactive compounds, both legal and illegal, work by hijacking our own neurotransmitters and brain receptor sites. In other words, they aren’t creating something out of nothing nor are they necessarily imposing an alien influence. They only work because our brains are set up to get high and feel pleasure.
Why does pleasure exist? Pleasure is the carrot dangled by the body to get us to do the things we need to survive and prosper. It helps us reach important survival goals. But we’re not ascetics. Experiencing and appreciating pleasure as its own entity is necessary for true happiness and life contentment. Our genes expect us to feel good, not just do the tasks that feeling good compels us to complete.
Read MoreIn her book about human-animal relations, Made for Each Other, Meg Daley Olmert tells the story of C.J. Buffalo Jones, a 19th Century frontiersman who, in her words, “witnessed one of the last demonstrations of the natural order that shaped the logic of our ancestors” and left record of it. “On a hill in Canada’s Northwest Territory,” she explains, “he watched herds of caribou congregate until all the eye could see for ten of miles around was a giant mast of animals whose antlers became a mighty forest. For several days this living landscape flowed past him day and night.” The number, which Jones estimated at 25 million, absolutely staggers the modern imagination.
Whether or not his approximation was accurate, still the size and force of such an experience seem beyond comprehension. Yet, it’s exactly the kind of natural event that inhabited our ancient ancestors’ communal consciousness and, not surprisingly, directed their cosmology. As Olmert suggests, it’s a major mental stretch for us moderns “to fathom a world in which we were not the top predators.” Yet, we evolved not in a state of dominion but coexistence, observance and even reverence for nature’s many forces.
Read MoreThis summer I got an unmistakable itch. A yearning. A calling. It happens every summer. I start getting these admittedly ridiculous, unrealistic, impossible, and yet somehow still unavoidable and alluring thoughts about ditching civilization for a little cabin in the woods somewhere. Maybe a plot of land, some chickens, some livestock (not sure what, maybe cows, goats, and sheep, maybe a pig or two). There’s a river running through it, too, or at least a babbling brook, leading up to a big blue lake that you can see right through to the bottom even though it’s hundreds of feet deep. And trees everywhere, towering green giants that cover the sky and leave just enough room for me to stargaze and spot oncoming storms.
Read MoreWe’ve got a three parter for today’s edition of Dear Mark. First up is a question about gallbladders and a Primal way of eating. Or, more specifically, the lack of a gallbladder, and how one can make Primal work without one. Just because your ability to digest fat is a bit impaired doesn’t mean you can’t eat this way. Next, I explore what CrossFit really thinks (or doesn’t) about walking, hiking, and other sorts of frequent slow moving. After all the anaerobic WODs, is there room for a relaxing walk with your significant other? And finally, I discuss the usefulness – or not – of Gluten Cutter and other gluten digestive aids. These products claim to help even sensitive people digest and detoxify gluten safely, but are they legit?
Let’s go:
Read MoreAnyone outside as they’re reading this? Who’s wishing they were? (I imagine there are many heads nodding.) It’s a natural human instinct, this pining away at the office window, this emotional itch to break out, and finally the luxuriant relief to be in the open again. The fact is, we’re never so much at home as we are in the outdoors. Nature was the context and logic for all of human evolution. Temporary shelters and caves aside, our nomadic hunter-gatherer ancestors lived their full lives under the big sky. They developed complex skills and even aesthetic preferences adaptive to surviving in the natural world. Increasingly, research illuminates the deep-reaching legacy of our natural roots. Studies support what Primal intuition has known all along: there are rich and measurable benefits to being in nature.
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Ⓒ 2023 Mark's Daily Apple
