I’ve revisited the idea of slowness recently and touched again on Wu-Wei when I thought about accepting our limitations. I saw this article in the New York Times a week or two ago and remembered it as tying in with the things I was talking about quite nicely. The article makes the case very well that Yoga is not as safe as we’d all like to believe. My opinion is that this is true of anything; which is why, in my SitQuietly instructions, I give a warning to consult your medical practitioner before taking up a meditation practise. But this article makes specific mention of people who seem to be treating Yoga as if it were a performance sport, specifically one man who threw himself into a spine twist and had three ribs give way.

The article says a lot of things that ring true for me, that echo my own gym and Tai Chi experiences. I realised a long time ago that it was up to me to make things easy on myself, that I had to do this by realising and respecting my limits. Apply Wu-Wei, don’t do things at an inappropriate speed, don’t force yourself into exercises that are inappropriate for your body type or mental state. When growth in our abilities occurs it should be unforced and as a result of the “70 percent rule”, which I’ve talked about before. This says that you work to 70 percent of your potential, with the other 30 percent held back for growth and improvement. Eventually, your 70 percent is equal to what used to be your 100 percent, and you’re still only giving 70 percent!

My other observation is that practises like Yoga, meditation and Tai Chi are not performance sports. The wisdom of Wu-Wei and the Slow Movement comes back again to the fore, these things are healing arts without a doubt; but only when used appropriately and at the right pace! They can heal your body and mind, but will do so in their own time, to try to hurry things seems to me to be a mistake. One that can only end badly as well. We in the West seem to be bringing our own neurotic hurried flavour to these things, but in doing so I worry that we lose a lot of their essence and bring ourselves further pain.

I’d like to write briefly about something that has been on mind mind for quite some time. It’s not an original observation that our modern world is moving at an ever faster pace. Nor is it an original observation that this pace is responsible for quite a bit of human pain and suffering along the way; we are not machines.

It was a couple of years ago with a feeling of pleasant surprise, that I discovered the Slow Movement and decided to look a little deeper. This movement was inspired by the book “In Praise of Slow” by Carl Honore, and this movement has at it’s core the idea that faster is not always better and we should do things at the right speed rather than the fastest. In fact, that constant increase in speed does us more harm than good.

It goes without saying that I think they’re right on the mark with this. We have enough aphorisms and sayings that echo these sentiments “the more haste, the less speed”, “haste makes waste”, “look before you leap”. In the east we find the Taoist principle of “Wu Wei” one part of which is observing the worlds pace and doing things at the correct speed, neither too fast or two slow. Anyone who’s done Tai Chi or Qigong, as I have, will understand what I mean.  After all, you can’t make a tree grow by pulling on the branches; and as an IT example you can’t make a file transfer or disk check run any faster than the hardware or connection will allow, you must simply wait!

To rush things often leads to substandard results and problems further down the line that take up more time to sort out. So any time you may have “saved”, is now spent there instead and you’ve had the extra headache that comes with this as well! Still think it’s a good idea to rush? Better to take the time to get it right, “measure twice, cut once” as the old saying goes.

I will finish with a specifically British example “you can’t hurry a good cuppa”, and this is very true. Tea needs time to brew properly and a hurried cup of tea is certainly not a good one.  When asked how I seem to always make a good cup of tea in the past, guess what I say?

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished” – Lao Tzu

I watched the recent furore over the US right attacking the British NHS with some interest and also a little head shaking.

Let’s be honest, it’s not a perfect system, but it’s there and it’s working and we’d be a lot worse off without it.  Many people, myself included, would not be alive today without the NHS.  I’ve yet to find a perfect system anywhere and to be honest, the criticism levelled at the NHS in the UK is a vital part of the process that refines it.  Such criticism is most useful if constructive and useless if done with ill intent.

It’s been instructive to watch the attacks, a certain US news mouthpiece proclaimed that if the scientist Stephen Hawking were British he’d be dead.  Hmm, slight problem with that is that he is British and also has received treatment from the NHS.  These people are so eager to attack, so full of vitriol that they can’t even do a basic fact check first.

I am honestly starting to wonder if this is the counter attack of the special interest lobby for US healthcare.  I just wish it looked to me like they actually cared about those less fortunate than themselves, because in my opinion they certainly don’t seem to.

This is an example of the sort of politics that we need less of, protecting the fatcats and special interests above all else.  It doesn’t actually solve any problems and when the system falls apart, as it surely will if abused and unbalanced for long enough, everybody loses – rich and poor.

A couple of people I know were talking the other day, one of them has just turned 24 and felt he was “getting old”. They were then saying that from mid-20′s to mid-30′s were the “best years, the prime, of your life”.

I’m thinking about blind acceptance of “common wisdom”, even when a little reflection will show it for the sham that it is. Surely, being in “your prime” is entirely attitude, there’s so much more to it than simple physical condition or age. In any event, our technology and extending lifespans are rewriting the rules as we go.

But even purely in physical condition terms, I’ve seen people at least 10 years older than me walk into the gym and match the younger gym rats in terms of performance.

Perhaps the notion of “prime of life” is inaccurate? I think it’s not the possession of a physical or mental condition, but its expression. It’s not what you’ve got but how you use it?

Well, after about 3 and a half months of vegetarianism, I’m eating meat again.  I tried, but it didn’t work this time.

After a period of stress and also the creeping of several aches and pains, I’ve been forced to conclude that Vegetarianism isn’t for me at this point in my life, so I have to put my health first and back off.

It was an enormously valuable experience and if you can make it work then you have my respect, I just couldn’t crack it this time, though I got a lot further than my previous two attempts.

At the moment I’m eating meat once per day, which is plenty.  This provoked a quick moment of thought.  From a Taoist/Chinese Medical perspective what is the advice for a diet?

Well, after some looking, I found that they recommend meat as only 1/10th of the diet  and eliminating all processed food (as far as you can).

I’ve linked to a couple of very interesting sites below:

Taoist Arts – Medicine and Diet

Seahorse Arts – The Chang Ming diet

This caught my eye on BBC News today, a simple of story of dehydration and older folk.  To summarise the article staff at a nursing home have found that if you make sure that older folk get plenty of water they stay healthier and more active and alert.  To quote the article directly:

“They report significant improvements in health as a result – many fewer falls, fewer GP call-outs, a cut in the use of laxatives and in urinary infections, better quality of sleep, and lower rates of agitation among residents with dementia. “

I’ve found that making sure I get enough water has had beneficial effects in my own daily experience.  I recommend it to everyone and this story simply confirms what I already knew, that the simple daily measures can be better than all the expensive drugs in the world.  Is it wrong of me to feel strangely vindicated as I type that?

You can find the original BBC News article here.