The word SHORTCUT has several meanings, depending on the context in which it is used. In our subject, it refers to the development of a path (road, highway, etc.) to reach the destination that was previously set faster. However, there is also the possibility of reaching the final destination in a shorter way even if the journey takes longer. In other words, the shortcut can be made in time or distance.
Now, in our matter of walking, we should discard any attempt to look for a shortcut, since we do not seek to make the journey to reach a certain point, but our purpose is always to walk and not to seek to save neither distance nor time (Future Posts IT IS NOT IMPORTANT TO REACH THE END and HOW IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT).
I would like to comment that this post arises from a certain anecdote that my granddaughter Ámbar remembers about a situation where her mom and dad took her to a place inside the city. It was 7 years ago. It happened that my son, asked them both which route they would like to take to get there on time, since they were running late: the shortcut or the usual way? They both answered in unison: By the shortcut! They immediately took a new route and began to walk down different streets. Time went by and time went by, and they did not reach their destination. Until my daughter-in-law, the mother, demanded: next time you ask us: Do you want to go by a shortcut or by a “largajo”? In Spanish the semantic and linguistic outburst is clearly understood, but in English it is more difficult, although the closest thing to this paradoxical expression would be a “long cut”, that is, a shortcut that is much longer, in distance and time, than the usual or logical route.
Whenever she can, Amber remembers this anecdote and mentions the possibility of finding herself in a “long cut”.
Well, within our task we must avoid both concepts, the normal and the linguistic paradoxical.
The important thing is to walk and develop some of the structured activities within the WALK-RWD system, reading, writing or drawing.
However, the shortcuts we should use are about other meanings and synonyms of the word, such as:
1) Not seeking to Interrupt the process of an action; cases such as:
– Not to avoid the walking program;
– Not to obstruct the process of reading a book;
– Not to hinder the procedure we follow to write that document;
– We should not look for a miraculous technique (short cut) to draw;
2) Indication of a part of a writing that should be eliminated;
3) Search for the expeditious process to perform a task;
4) Eliminate the action to prevent a writing from being done;
5) Not impeding or hindering a person when he or she is speaking;
All shortcuts in these other senses are welcome for the application of the WALK-RWD system.
This post tries to respond – in a certain way and in a concise manner- to what may be being generated in the deepest substrates of the mental structures of human beings, by limiting them in their early age, to move as they normally do since they start walking. I am referring to the new paradigm that may be being shaped by the prevailing circumstances, worldwide, as a result of the 2020-2021 health contingency.
Children all over the world have been induced to stay confined within 4 walls, because they are forced to stay at home to avoid contagion. The best case scenario has been when they have been allowed to return to school, but they are also restricted because they are not allowed to go out for recreation; that is, they are kept in almost complete immobility.
Very probably that final stage that I have pointed out in the posts CHRONICLE OF A DISAPPEARANCE ANNOUNCED IN THE PLEISTOCENE, HOMO-ITER: MAN-WALKER. PART I, ..HOMO-ITER: MAN-WALKER. PART II, HOMO-LECTOREM AND HOMO-ESCRIPTOREM, in which the human being hardly walks anymore and has been atrophying in some physical and other mental functions, in addition to the decay he has suffered in his own immune system and self-repair and adjustment of ailments, affections and diseases, which he can no longer face as he did some centuries or millennia ago, because he has become a 99 percent sedentary being, depending exclusively on medicines.
According to the statistics we have been able to gather, 93% of children – in the cities – who should go to school, are now at home, and only 7% worldwide have the space to take a few steps outside. Of this -urban- minimum percentage, only ½ percent can enjoy a walk beyond a 300 square-feet garden.
The question we ask ourselves is: What will be the consequences for the human race of continuing to reduce its walking from the early years? We already know -and we have already commented- that these consequences have a physical scope, but above all a functional organic and mental, intellectual, emotional and psychological one, such as the increase of depression due to the omission of this basic activity of walking.
For the moment, we cannot answer this question with numerical certainty, however, we are already beginning to obtain some objective results in the research and responses that are being recorded in various regions of the world.
# 569. ANCIANO EL TIEMPO
We can remember Ivan Illich in his acclaimed thesis: A world without schools. But he never said a world without walking. Illich proposed to give more responsibility to the human being so that he could learn according to his needs. He proposed an unschooling -considering it imminent- that would give human beings the true sense of responsibility in this line of teaching-learning; and he said that the individual could -under this new system- teach and learn within his physical and mental needs. Unfortunately, he did not opine anything about walking; in post WALKING THROUGH STREET FORESHORTENINGS, I mention my book Pueblo Quieto (*), although I was already ahead in post WHAT WOULD GREAT THINKERS RESPOND ABOUT WALKING?, in the month of April 2019, what Ivan might have thought about this fundamental function of the human being, in relation to educational centers; I put in Illich’s voice, the following sarcastic question: “Should I attend some course in order to walk, or enroll in a school?”
Without wishing to be alarmist, the disappearance of the human being on the face of the Earth is already announced, and not precisely because of wars or viruses, in a peremptory term, due to the fact that his walking has been drastically reduced, almost to zero, now with greater intensity since his childhood.
This decrease and limitation, which has been minimizing the essential function of walking in the human being, which was the fundamental cause of the emergence of HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS -according to the evolutionist theory- post CHRONICLE OF A DISAPPEARANCE ANNOUNCED IN THE PLEISTOCENE, where we mentioned: “Very probably this transformation in the feet that we observe, is the one that allowed Homo Sapiens to place itself in a superior position with respect to the rest of the animals, but above all above mammals and its hominid brethren”. Its erect position and its feet were the essential things that made a hominid, 2 million years ago, to develop as HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS, according to the developmentalist theory, becoming the current human being.
# 1111. ETAPAS DE LA VIDA, 9 DE 10
L E T U S W A L K holding the hand of that hominid who, a long time ago, showed us the path we should take.
(*) Loya Lopategui, Carlos, Pueblo Quieto. Las caídas de la Libertad, EMULISA, Mexico, 2015.
We already said in Post EMOTIONS AND THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM that emotions can be of the positive or pleasant and negative or unpleasant type, and something very significant about them is that they can become the cause of various diseases.
The power of emotions is intimately linked to the power of hormones. Hormonal (glandular) functioning directly affects the emotional reactions of the human being. This close relationship is explained in future posts THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM AND THE STRESS HORMONES, THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM AND THE HORMONES OF HAPPINESS and WALKING AND THE HORMONE CHANGE EVERY 7 YEARS, which describe the incidence of walking on the human glandular system. Here we will only analyze and consider its emotional effects.
Besides this great categorization, of positive and negative, the acceptably “healthy” human being, of adult age, is a complex and continuous whole of slight emotions – in one extreme – and powerful – in another extreme: Simple and Complex, Tenuous and Acute, Weak and Strong, Hesitant and Firm; from the Lightest to the Most Powerful threshold.
The sum in time occupied by the emotions classified in the first extreme, represent 95% of our attention (SLIGHT EMOTIONS); while the remaining 5% of the time (POWERFUL EMOTIONS), correspond to those classified in the second postulation, the other extreme.
On those that occupy our greater time we can have a great and better control over them; while those that occupy the 5%, are much more difficult to govern. However, we can consider that all of them are not invincible (that none of them is invincible).
We could have titled this post “Human emotions and ‘how’ to control them” or “Knowing ‘how’ to express emotions better”. Let’s see why.
First of all, we must know “how” to control them, to be able to act in a timely manner and thus keep ourselves balanced. That is to say, to make an effort and act on the extreme of the POWERFUL EMOTIONS.
Knowing “how” is not easy. However, a recipe for having an acceptable mental health is not to repress them 100%, but to know “how” to release them subtly and comfortably (Future Post AUTOLIBERATION OF NEGATIVE EMOTIONS THROUGH SELF-SUGGESTIONABILITY).
This liberation is equivalent to the “control” that we must have over them, fundamentally over those of the 2nd nature (category) less controllable (regulable).
This inner struggle that occurs between those emotions that harm us and the positive emotions that can even heal us, is linked to the spiritual part of the human being, where many religions have explained them -or have mentioned them- as vices and virtues, depending on the rooting that one or the other manifests in the being. With this we want to express that the human being requires a catharsis that leads him to unburden the negative that is in his being in a way that does not affect him or other people; since all emotions lead to actions and reactions, positive or negative. This need for catharsis is as evident as I explain it in a novel way in my book God Goes to Psychiatrist, where we can appreciate that even a supreme being requires to analyze and clear his emotions (*).
Now, when we are under the influence of a negative emotion, we cannot feel or think about anything else but that harmful emotion. However, we must make an effort and go for a walk, because it has been demonstrated that the practice of walking restructures the nervous system, that which is formed by nerve cells (Future Posts THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM-THE NERVOUS-DEGENERATION and THE NERVOUS IMPULSE AND THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM), achieving to potentiate this nervous reconfiguration and its nervous-emotional healing effect by complementing the walk with the other 3 structured activities within the WALK-RWD system. This allows us to face the two sides of emotions, both the negative side (unpleasant emotions) and the powerful side (powerful emotions). For both aspects it is necessary to make immediate decisions.
It is necessary to make major efforts to combat negative emotions, because we are conscious -when we are under their dominion- that we do not want to do anything, but to think and feel about the evil and destructive emotion that dominates us (its negative essence and its powerful extreme).
However, if we decide to go for a walk for a moment, and start reading or simply contemplating nature, we will be able to distance ourselves from those thoughts and feelings that emanate from our uncontrolled emotions in a certain amount of time (10-20 minutes).
We must be aware – fully aware – that negative emotions by themselves will not allow us to free ourselves from their dominion, because that is precisely where they feed and self-generate, from our lacerated and dejected feelings. Let us break their powerful destructive chains, going for a walk, taking a good dip (DIP) in nature.
Just by walking, simply and simply, we manage to unblock the nervous tensions and release the accumulated emotions, and it works for both positive and negative emotions, of both stages; however, the ones we are most interested in controlling, expressing, releasing, discharging and not repressing, are the negative emotions.
In the future we will present different ways (methods) that through the practice of the WALK-RWD system will lead us to be able to EXPRESS THEM, CONTROL THEM, RELEASE THEM, DISCHARGE THEM and also NOT REPRIMIT THEM, according to the cases in which we are suffering the negative and powerful, uncontrolled emotions; these are:
Post AUTOLIBERATION OF NEGATIVE EMOTIONS THROUGH SELF-SUGGESTIBILITY” METHOD
Post PARADOXICAL EMOTIONAL PROGRAMMING
Post THE RELEASED EMOTION METHOD
(*) Loya Lopategui, Carlos, God Goes to Psychiatrist, EMULISA, 2021, Distributed by Amazon, available in Kindle Edition: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09HVCWDNT.
The word resilience was taken by the science of Psychology from the technological branch “Strength of Materials”, which defines it as a rate that certain materials have to recover their original shape after having been subjected to deforming stresses; that is, those materials that are subjected to the effect of an external force bend up to a certain degree of deformation, without breaking, and can recover their original shape.
Steel is the typical case par excellence. It is common for a bar of this material to be tested under increased and accumulated stresses, to observe in the laboratory its resistance capacity up to failure, where it does not return to its initial position because it does not recover it, and that point defines the maximum resilience index of the steel bar.
Applied to human beings, resilience is the capacity they have to withstand the negative actions of the external environment (physical and social), and to be able to maintain an acceptable attitude regarding their emotional state. A capacity to be able to overcome these harmful external stimuli and still come out of them feeling encouraged and settled, both physically and psychically (psychological and emotional).
Some specialists include within the definition of resilience, the adaptation of the individual and his competitiveness, however, this consideration of both concepts should be analyzed and discussed regarding the validity of their incorporation.
By extension, we could also consider that a person with resilience capacity is one who is capable of making good sense of negative things and transforming harmful experiences into positive ones; in the same way, we could include those individuals who maintain their serenity and sanity in the midst of the “storm” that surrounds them, preserving their emotional balance.
In addition, I would like to mention that Homeostasis is a general principle that living beings have to regulate and rebalance their “internal milieu” and that allows the human being to maintain a stable physical and mental condition, within certain limits. In the future Post THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM AND HOMEOSTASIS, we will present this homeostatic capacity to give healthy responses by varying the functioning of the human body systems in an appropriate way for the stabilization of the physiological constants.
Now then, the WALK-RWD system, by means of its functional structure, allows us to acquire certain mental capacity to support, compensate and remedy the damages, disorders and adversities (damages, prejudices, deteriorations, mishaps, setbacks, grievances, annoyances, disturbances, alterations) generated by the negative external agents that affect us emotionally. Likewise, it provides us with a certain potential to advance satisfactorily towards the goals we have set for ourselves. In itself, the system allows us to achieve a great LONGANIMITY, that is to say, a strength, a balance and a spirit in the face of the different stumbling blocks, setbacks and adversities that are presented to us on a daily basis.
How do you provide and manage these mechanisms for the achievement of Resilience?
I will try to be synthetic, and I will refer to the posts where I have already mentioned it.
We can always refer to the respective posts, but I will briefly mention once again the help we can obtain by incorporating the WALK-RWD system in our daily actions.
In a concrete way it helps us to increase our physical, mental and emotional capacities to respond to the society before the problems that overwhelm us.
Of course, it helps us to affirm our physical, mental and emotional health, as well as to reach acceptable levels in the creation of new and better ideas that serve to solve some of those problems that worry or stress us, and also to achieve a satisfactory tranquility, the basis of all human behavior to achieve personal goals. It motivates and induces us to reach our goals.
An additional virtue of the system is that it provides us with assistance in eliminating bad habits and procrastination, as well as controlling negative emotions.
It helps us to know ourselves better – who I am and who I want to be – through its 3 structured activities (reading, writing and drawing), which in turn allows us to take better attitudes towards bad experiences.
I have been transmitting this WALK-RWD system from a small manual that I wrote in 2009, and the posts that I have written and published are the ones that have allowed me to expand this transmission of my personal experiences that have given me throughout my life to practice it, intensifying and perfecting it in several of its functional sections.
Further on, I mention the posts that I consider to be related with greater incidence in the topic of RESILIENCE, regarding some of its outstanding topics.
Each of the posts that serve as support contain the functional mechanisms that I myself have experienced in the application of the system with excellent results, so let’s not waste time. For our body -physical and psychic- to respond with resilience, we only have to select the convenient and adequate post -according to the topic we have to solve- that brings the practical and functional processes to apply the WALK-RWD system, according to the indications and procedures included. With the warning, that all the instructions contained in the WALK-RWD system, are designed within its functional and natural essence, which is walking; walking is always included in them.
Let us keep in mind, as Prometheus transmitted it to us in those mythical times, that the only unavoidable mission that we must carry out is: “To walk on the planet Earth“. The same can be said and assured, paraphrasing Ortega y Gasset: “Man has a mission to walk on earth. This mission has not been imposed by anyone or anything. He carries it within himself, it is the very root of his constitution”.
The following is a functional bridge-guide to transmit the aspects that can be improved by applying the WALK-RWD system for the achievement of resilience, by means of the mechanisms and methods that we have exposed through the blog posts, both present and future.
The aspects that can be remedied, improved and transformed, attending to the resilience capacity of the human organism, and through the application of the WALK-RWD system, are the following:
– Physical Body
– Mind-Brain
– Emotional
– Spiritual
– Psychological
For this reason, we point out below all the Posts that can be used to satisfy these aspects, as well as the topics and/or themes that are addressed to achieve resilience.
It is worth explaining that the anachronistic aspect that could be contemplated, when we point out: “both present and future”, is due to the fact that this guide will be updated as we publish new posts, through which we will have the opportunity to deal with other aspects and topics in the future; in other words, this post will permanently serve to apply the WALK-RWD system, according to the subsequent procedures that we will incorporate in new future posts.
To proceed and determine the post or posts to be used, we must have in mind the aspect we wish to attend to of our organism and the topic or theme related to resilience, and with it enter the following list, to select and go directly to the adequate procedure or method of resilience defined by the WALK-RWD system.
If you have already chosen a post -or several- that can help you, you will only have to select it so that you can follow the indications and the procedure indicated in it.
These exercises # 2 of pre-warm-up have different effects on other parts of the body and on additional specific movement systems, although there are similarities with Exercises # 1, proposed in a previous post (I.-PRE-HEATING EXERCISES: LEGS- BACK- WAIST). It is important that we perform several series of these exercises, because one aspect that is generated with the realization of exercises -whichever they are- is the constant repetition of them, which leads us to create a habit, which is positive; however, we must recognize if we begin to perceive monotony, to alternate them.
We recommend, for any type of walking, these Exercises # 2 of warm-up, although they are not essential. They can be performed according to each person’s needs and physical condition. One only, two of them or several.
We must also consider that each person can make some modifications to the exercises, according to their needs, their comfort and their unique way of adapting to them, in terms of duration, style and sequence; however, in generic terms, they should be performed as close as possible to what is specified, detailed and explained. Each individual has his own characteristics that guide him to perform the exercises in a very personal way, so it is difficult for everyone to perform them in the same way and it is practically impossible to put them into practice in an exact and identical way.
These and all the exercises that we recommend should be based on the fundamental principle that they should be performed in a harmonious way with respect to the vertical axis or alternating the 2 respective symmetrical limbs (Future Post THE SYMMETRY OF THE BODY, ITS BALANCE AND WALKING).
Walking is a natural exercise in the human being, so no warm-up is required. However, the following warm-up exercises are recommended for any type of walking, although they are not essential.
They can be performed according to the needs of each person and the physical state in which he/she is, as we said, only one, two or several of them.
