In the activity of walking, I know that I can start, stop or restart, if I wish, in several points of the path, I can also at any time, if I so decide, modify the direction or the path, even change the path itself.
I can do the same with my life.
Let us begin an analogy that has an impact on decision making, change, transformation, disturbance, transition, renewal and evolution of our lives.
Δ§Δ Why shouldn’t I start a walk? There are several reasons; some powerful, invincible, and others trivial, weak; an ordinary one would be because it is raining! For some people, the mere fact that the sky is cloudy, it discourages them from doing so, it persuades them not to start a walk.
If we want to live life to the fullest, we have to get out of bed every day with our spirits up and fight with ourselves to face all the negative aspects, from the moment the sun rises, transforming the bad approaches, to feeling and thinking positively. Let us remember that we must move forward, that is, with joy, love, approving ourselves, with order, with humility, with affection, with slimness, with health, always accepting ourselves.
Δ§Δ I can see on the road, at a certain distance, that it divides in two, because I see a bifurcation in the road. I immediately think: when I get there, I will have to choose which of the two ways I will continue my walk.
In everyday life, we continually have to choose between different options; and this may or may not mean a significant change. We must be alert to be able and willing to transform ourselves and make the right and most convenient decisions.
Δ§Δ Every stone in the path can stop me, and provoke in my walk, a change of speed, rhythm, cadence, compass, etc., and this can mean and generate a disturbance in my walk. We must take advantage of each stone on the path to become aware that each one can represent a positive change, always positive.
Let us go forward through life with a correct, positive sense of “looking forward”; and backward only to analyze our personal experiences. Let us avoid barriers and obstacles along the way by facing them or avoiding them. Let us view existential disturbances in a positive light and take advantage of life opportunities.
Δ§Δ When we reach the bifurcation, we will inevitably have to make a decision, and this will represent a deviation, that is, a change.
This bifurcation is analogous to the feelings we have about the things we do not want to change. Let’s accept and confront the transitions.
Δ§Δ Now that we are close to that point of the bifurcation, we observe that they are two similar paths; however, as we get closer we realize that both have undoubtedly different directions, one goes North and the other goes East.
Moreover, as we approach the bifurcation we observe that one goes into the woods, while the other stays in an area without vegetation, one is seen to be lost in the distance, near the mountains, while the other reaches a lake; probably one is more winding than the other, one with slopes and the other flatter, one with more pitfalls than the other.
In everyday life we would like to have a crystal ball that would tell us with certainty what kind of change or by which avatar we should orient our existence. That quartz crystal sphere used by magicians to divine future events.Which step we should take to reorient our life. That first step is the most important because we are deciding on a renewal.
Δ§Δ Now we are stopped, resting at the precise point of the bifurcation and we have no choice but to opt for one of them.
Once we have set out on either of the two bifurcated paths, our feet will continue walking without stopping, they will find their rhythm, their compass, and will move at a speed in step with the rest of the physical body and the mental acceptance that has just decided to make the change of direction; we were walking in a North-East direction and changed to the North.
Now we just have to continue walking along that path with a new direction.
All our fears, anxieties, pretexts, mental resistances, we must reconcile them, make them conscious, to act with responsibility and freedom, with our best effort, in the different tasks that a new avatar brings in our lives. Let us be ready to change.
Δ§Δ After restarting our walk along the new chosen path, heading north, and in a small curve that descended we came across a bridge that crosses a small stream. The bridge is old and extremely deteriorated, it is advisable not to go over it and I must cross the creek walking, because its small stream of water would hardly wet the shoes. However, there is the option of returning to take the other bifurcated trail, heading east.
Sometimes, during a moment of our existence, we wish to go back to a certain past time in our lives, where we were better off; because we are suffering at that moment from great problems; however, going back in time is impossible. We must be tolerant and accept transitions.
Δ§Δ We better decide to continue on the same path and get our feet wet, because on second thought, perhaps on the other path we will find worse physical conditions to move forward.
If we have stumbled over some stones during the crossing, it does not mean that we will have to encounter others in the future.
Crossing the stream while avoiding the bridge is significant, because we have realized that it could fall down if we use it by crossing over it, due to its deterioration.
In habitual life, avoiding repeating mistakes is synonymous of changing the feeling of being a victim, because of bad decisions, and we should avoid negative thoughts and attitudes, replacing them with a new pattern of behavior where we ourselves make the decisions, and no one should be asked for authorization to do so; moving forward is under our power, and this will allow us to stop being a victim. We must not allow anyone or anything to disturb our existence. Let us accept ourselves.
Δ§Δ Once the stream has been crossed, the possible sinuosity of the path can be seen ahead. We should check the elapsed time it has taken to get there. Half an hour, one hour, etc.
We should make a small reminder of the events we have experienced. Everything has been pleasant, we do not feel tired.
One should think and feel that what is really important is not to reach the end of the road, but the experiences that have been lived, the contemplation of the road itself, as well as the nature that surrounds it, the vegetation and the animals that have been observed, its ups and downs, the stones, the bridge, the stream, etc.
All this will help us to feel good about ourselves.
However, in daily life we suffer from negative habits, which often cause us discomfort and irritation with other people and with ourselves. All our experiences should be lights that illuminate our future to acquire new positive habits: the bad habits let’s put them aside.
Δ§Δ The pitfalls and the big stones that come our way must be avoided, evaded, or better, faced by passing over them, taking care not to fall.
How to change our way of being, of feeling, to eliminate those evil habits, such as smoking, drinking alcohol, shouting? we only have to identify that “need” in us that generates that habit; once fully identified, analyze ourselves, become aware of the harm it does us and eradicate it from our life. Easy or very difficult, it is necessary to achieve it.
We have to look back, analyzing our personal experiences to understand why we have that “need” and in this way we will be able to eliminate and with it the symptoms of smoking, drinking, shouting, etc., and in the same way free ourselves from the past that imprisons us, eliminating those evil habits.
Δ§Δ We will have to continue walking on the new path, although there will be opportunities, if we decide so, to stop to review how we feel physically and spiritually, or to go back to where we came from. Either option is possible.
The important thing, in every decision, transformation, disturbance or transition in our life, is to feel what we want to do, if we do not feel it we cannot know how to achieve it; if we cannot feel it is that we do not want it.
Δ§Δ Now, the option to return can be carried out in different ways, one is exactly on our footsteps, also through some bends that we observe during the journey, through some gap, etc. What is relevant in this possible option of change in the trajectory and in the sense, is not only to stop, but to go back implies that we are not interested in reaching the end of the path immediately, or that we are insecure, fearful or tired, and we prefer to decline in the continuation of the walk.
In everyday life we often tell ourselves that it is difficult to make decisions to move forward, and not so much to keep moving forward where we have become accustomed to doing so. This habit is difficult to break or change, however, we must impose in our feeling and our thinking that transitions are necessary, and we must continue moving forward, even if at certain times we have to stop, to take a breath and to analyze our emotional and intellectual circumstances of the inner self, until we find a balance between what we desire, what we truly feel and what we can achieve.
Δ§Δ The bifurcations in the paths (Future Post SARUTAHIKO, GOD OF TRAVELERS IN ANCIENT JAPAN, Gods of the bifurcations) are analogies of the crucial moments in the decision making of our existence.
Let us take a walk along any path, observe each bifurcation in the road and make each one of them a metaphor that coincides with our own circumstantial decisions. They will help us to better understand and become aware of our lives and encourage us to get ready to walk (Future Post WALKING AND VITAL OPPORTUNITIES).
Before going into the biunivocal subject of instinct-walking, let us answer the following 3 questions: What is an instinct? What are the instincts that human beings have? How are instincts classified?
Instinct is an inborn behavior in the human being and therefore its origin is not the result of learning over time; that is to say, instinctive behavior is not a response to reasoning or reflection, even different from intuition, which is also a human function that is far from will and reasoning. Instinct is the capacity that living beings have that empowers and drives them naturally to develop action in a spontaneous way without the intervention of reasoning, consciousness or will.
Let us see which are the human instincts, in order to know and be able to concentrate on those that have a direct relation with walking. To do so, we must consider a pertinent classification.
We would like to analyze the pros and cons of the different theories of instinct that have been formulated; however, we do not intend to highlight which of them is the most accurate or the most acceptable.
There are two positions that have been valid up to the present day, and which in themselves contain extreme representativeness: one of these perspectives demeans instinct by submitting it to reason, and the other considers that instinct manifests itself without ties, free with respect to reasoning and with an impermutable intrinsic value. Although we will not stop to elucidate the validity of one with respect to the other, we maintain that even if instinct is a degraded intelligence, our postulation of orienting ourselves to its strengthening and rescue as one of the healthiest ways for the human being to develop fully, in accordance with his pristine nature, would still be valid.
An exemplary classification is one that divides the instincts in basic and vital; considering all of them fundamental for the full development of the individual.
The basic instincts are:
1. Survival instinct.
2. Instinct of Reproduction and Perpetuation of the Species.
The vital instincts are:
– Preservation or conservation instinct.
– Instinct of personal, spiritual, scientific and artistic realization.
– Instinct of self-care.
– Instinct to flee and escape from danger, or to reject and repel aggression.
– Instinct of territoriality.
– Instinct of curiosity and inquiry.
– Sexual or Procreation instinct.
– Eros or life instinct.
– Thanatos or death instinct (aggression and anger).
– Instinct to leave the maternal womb.
– Instinct to leave the place of origin.
– Mythological-religious instinct (traditions and rites).
– Instinct of defense, protection, security and alertness.
– Instinct of submission and resistance to aggression and danger.
– Instinct of solitude
– Instinct of repulsion to the unknown
As can be observed, some of them are confused within others; however, I decided to mention them all to be more illustrative.
The human being is born with an instinctive programming, that is to say, he is born with all these instincts but some of them appear and are manifested since we are born, even from the maternal womb, but others are incorporated as we develop.
The instinct of procreation, although it is kept in the biological-cellular part, it appears until a certain age, when the reproductive organs -both of the woman and of the man- reach their maturity (the adequate age) to function as such. Territoriality, however, does not; it develops from the maternal womb.
I must point out that some classifications detract from their crucial and transcendental importance since they include the lower instincts.
Briefly, I would like to comment on the need that the human being has had to live in society, which has been confused with a natural impulse. We can affirm, in a summary way, that man is not a social being by his natural condition. Man is a sociable being by necessity. He is not inclined, by his natural condition, to meet with other beings of his own species, but is driven to socialize by external stimuli, to seek protection, greater strength within a group to defend himself, to seek food, to preserve the species. There is no such instinct in human beings that impels them to be social. It is a mistake to think that by its very essence, homo sapiens is a sociable being.
The instinct to leave the place of origin is gestated in two temporal phases; one is when the fetus leaves the womb, as an individual being, and the other phase is when it reaches a certain age in adolescence that manifests itself with the desire to leave the place where it has developed most of its early age.
I like to comment on the fetus in the womb because it is very explanatory of what happens to the human being when he needs to leave his place of origin. It is a second stage of the being that reaches its age -at 11-15 years old- and requires to be expelled from that second womb formed by parents, relatives, place, etc., to be able to reach that new vital environment and breathe by itself. I repeat what I mentioned in Post THE WALK AND THE INSTINCT TO LEAVE THE PLACE OF ORIGIN: “Going for a walk is not only a physical impulse to exercise the body and give movement to the mind, but it is closely related to something much deeper in the soul: going out to strengthen the individual personality. This going for a walk is a metaphor of the unconscious that seeks the healthy awakening of the personality of the being. Leaving one’s place of origin in a timely manner -at a certain age- allows one to develop better and to search for one’s own personality. Definitely this is an action that every human being -man and woman- must put into practice by himself, as his own decision and encouraged by his parents”.
“Leaving one’s place of origin in a timely manner -at a certain age- allows one to better develop oneself and seek a personality of one’s own. This is not a mere recommendation on my part, but this is a natural need of the human being to achieve his own personality and not to be frustrated, in his immediate future, for not making that exit with opportunity (Future Post THE WALKING AND THE INSTINCTS). However, to seek to obtain a re-integration of the personality that is lost by living comfortably within the family bosom, after a certain age: After having passed our youth, where the interference of the participation of the parental home -parents, family and educators- that have prevented a healthy development of the personality, is quite complicated from the psychic and behavioral point of view”.
“Of course, this departure should not take place before a certain age when the being cannot support himself; nor after a certain age, when the personality already suffers distortions, preventing its autonomous development, and the unconscious work that must be carried out by means of this departure (evasion, absence), is lacerating for the person who does not manage to do it in a timely manner”.
It is also possible that it is true that in both scenarios the human being has the desire to return, both to the mother’s womb and to the place of origin, but we cannot be sure of this. Good topic for someone to investigate and develop.
In several posts I have mentioned that it is only required to take the first step, placing oneself on the path, as the simple mechanism required to get excited and get rid of laziness. Some walking scholars mention this “taking the first step” in different contexts in order to point out and promote its benefits and “products”, and it is true in the vast majority of the topics discussed (undertaken). In our case, to be able to take the first step is to be able to detach ourselves from where we are rooted (rooted); rooting (rooting) that is established in the demerited state of mind of the being.
Walking is an indubitable (unquestionable, unquestionable, undeniable, irrefutable, incontrovertible) symbol of moving forward, of wishing to get somewhere, be it physical or sensory-sentimental (work, family, professional, social); and if we cannot leave our place of origin it is because we are afraid -among other denials of the personality- and we invalidate (and frustrate) one of the most important instincts of being.
On the other hand, the instinct of territoriality is not to stay in one place, but to look for that place outside of where we are rooted. A new place to look for our own particular development, physical, mental and spiritual. A plant or bush that is sad needs to be pulled out of the soil where it is planted and moved to a place where it can flourish. Likewise human beings, it is necessary, at a certain age, to uproot from his place, and take him to other places where he can develop all his capacities.
Walking also has this other “product”, in addition to the benefits that we have pointed out and described above.
Let us concentrate on those instincts that walking has direct effects on, such as the instinct of territoriality, the instinct to leave the place of origin, and the instinct to flee and escape in the face of aggression and danger.
All of them -the instincts- are cultivated, favored (encouraged), exercised, developed and preserved by walking, however, not walking also prevents them, represses them, restricts them, slows them down, prevents them from developing fully, and sometimes cuts them off, and the result in the future is to have a barren (sterile) being (Essay Peoples without Instinct *). As we have mentioned in the same Post THE WALK AND THE INSTINCT TO LEAVE THE PLACE OF ORIGIN, if this instinct to leave the place of origin is not attended to, the personality of the individual can become atrophied and it will be difficult to achieve a correct and satisfactorily finished (consummated) personality.
“Freedom, physical and mental, is born with the human being himself, it is inherent to him. Any action against it is reflected in a setback in the evolution of the species.
These involutions invade the different psychomotor spheres, which are impacted by subtracting from the human being physiological, psychic, emotional and instinctual aptitudes, both at the individual and collective levels.
It is not possible to distinguish with certainty in which of these spheres the impact of the loss of freedom is stronger, however, we must review the one where injuries can be provoked whose damage is not easily reversible, or that endangers the existence of the human being, by attacking his instinct of reproduction and survival as a people and as a species.
The sense of adaptation as an option for survival has been one of the ways that has shown the greatest damage to the human race; submission to dogma plays a determining role in the suppression of vital instincts, and thus in the prolongation of the status of servility and secular stagnation that peoples currently show” (Pueblos sin Instinto *).
WALKING AS AN EXPRESSION OF A HIGHER INSTINCT.
Now, I would like to argue certain ideas trying to support and validate that walking is a fundamental activity of the human being (Future Post WALKING, THE MOTOR OF THE REST OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES), a superior activity, it is a meta-activity. The prefix “meta” is to denote its status of “superiority” and “transcendence” that it has over other natural activities of the human being.
If we go back to the past, when hominids did not walk upright, we could ask ourselves about this “instinctive” walking.
Were they unable to develop that instinctive activity?
Did they stand upright to fully develop it and the rest of the instincts?
For a natural reason did they acquire that capacity and therefore they stood upright?
These questions open other avenues of research for the future, which I will try to answer in Future Post WALKING, THE MOTOR OF THE REST OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES. For now, in the here and now, let’s start walking to strengthen our instincts, both basic and vital.
(*) Loya Lopategui, Carlos, Pueblos sin Instinto, EMULISA, México, 2022. (An English version will be published soon).
It is important to start by mentioning Paul Diel regarding his conception of the unconscious and the subconscious. In Post THE UNCONSCIOUS AND THE CONSCIOUS IN THE APPLICATION OF THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM, we said: “In order to make incursions into the configuration (conformation) of the mental (cerebral) functions, we will resort to a classification that Paul Diel makes (elaborates) in his book Psychoanalysis of Divinity, F.C.E., Mexico, 1974. Diel clearly points out the psychic functions of the conscious, unconscious and superconscious as the natural and healthy states of the psyche that every human being has; he also includes the subconscious as the damaged function of the mind, freeing the unconscious from that attribution that is regularly made to it. In his essay Diel shows the unconscious as the vital and vigorous function of the psyche where all the desires, appetites and instincts rejected (repressed) by the consciousness accumulate; defining the subconscious as the pathological and unhealthy state of the human psyche (Jung calls it psychological shadow), which has desires that are irreconcilable with reality, that which our consciousness assures us -most of the time- is the authentic one”. We will use and adhere strictly to this definition as I consider it to be the most accurate.
Furthermore, we need to underline that the subconscious is not part of the unconscious; that is, the unconscious does not contain any damaged element or part.
Now, let us see what the EROS and THANATOS instincts are.
In the science of psychology these two instincts have been defined to signify the inclinations that the human being has towards life (Eros instinct) and towards death (Thanatos instinct). Both instincts are innate and natural in all human beings, since they are born, live and until they die; and both can be developed, increased or decreased, depending on the individual being and his environment and social surroundings.
351-EROS AND THANATOS BIVALENT REALITY
THANATOS INSTINCT
The Thanatos instinct is an impulse or inclination to death and destruction, a concept that sounds aggressive, but in our field it indicates that generalized dissatisfaction -in a high percentage of human beings- that we feel and that overwhelms us, because we do not feel happy in an appreciable and constant way.
Resorting to some definitions, we find the following meanings and scopes of the concept Thanatos. Freud incorporated this concept in his psychoanalytic theory, as the opposite of the Eros instinct.
It is considered to be a force of discord and rupture, contrary to the meaning of EROS, being this instinctive of union.
Thanatos is a vigorous energy towards death in general, manifesting itself also in a particular way as an impulse towards self-destruction, in which the individual is not conscious of it; in other less crude (rougher or softer) words, in those cases that are not reduced, it is a propensity (predisposition, disposition, tendency) towards the negation of the self.
In Post WALKING AS PHYSICAL PRACTICE AND AS ALEGORY, I expressed: “No one should be afraid of death if one has lived genuinely and vitally in the light of one’s own spirit, under the guidance of the force of the particular reason, the feeling of personal emotions and under the WAY of knowledge indicated by the instincts [EROS instinct] and the individual unconscious”. Of course I was referring to the EROS instinct.
EROS INSTINCT
Let us now devote a few words to its counterbalancing companion, the Eros impulse.
This instinct is a determining inclination to life, to the desire to live, to the yearning to live.
Resorting to dictionary definitions, we find the following meanings and scopes of the concept Eros: 1) Desire for possession or love, almost always erotic. 2) In Platonic philosophy, the driving force of life that tends towards the absolute God; hence, the motive that explains education, the arts and philosophy. In Plato’s use of the term, he insists on the character of fascination, impersonality and intense desire. 3) This is why Eros must be distinguished from the Indian Bhakti (altruistic surrender), from the Buddhist Metta (disinterested benevolence), from the Confucian Jen (humanity, charity) and Ai (personal love), and from the Christian Agapao (sacrificial, protective, fraternal love) and Phileo (personal affection or fondness). Source: Dictionary of Philosophy, Dagobert D. Runes, Grijalbo, Mexico, 1981 (Original title: Dictionary of Philosophy).
In these scopes we can observe that in the different languages each one gives it a different meaning and this leads us to multiply the content of the word. Of course, we have made incursions into the understanding of the concept, and now we will do so in what instinct represents in itself in the human condition.
According to Freud both instincts, Eros and Thanatos, are complementary and both are indispensable for the survival of the individual being.
The unconscious is EROS.
The subconscious is Thanatos.
To walk is to advance. To advance is EROS.
THANATOS is not to advance, is not to walk.
For my own reasons to promote walking, I will dedicate more effort to elucidate the behavioral and directive manifestations of the Thanatos instinct, in human behavior, more than of Eros (Of this instinct EROS, sheltered by the individual unconscious, I already spoke in Post THE EMOTIONS AND THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM), although I did not mention it with that name. Aspects that I will try to show that this negative drive tries to dominate the Human Condition, since it is a “natural” reflex in the behavior of the human being.
I will try to list, as completely as possible, the equivocity (multivaloration, polyvalence) of Thanatos, an instinct that we locate its manifestations concealing itself in other attitudes and actions of the human being: punishment, war, aggression, overweight, damage, alcoholism, drug addiction, excommunication, revenge, torture, sadism, masochism, smashing, whipping, beating, stoning, lynching, expulsion and imprisonment; which I believe are the most representative manifestations, and that there will surely be some more that I have not included.
As we can observe in this list, some human actions are clearly seen to be a homologue to this instinct, but others are observed with different ranges (graduation, scale).
As is to be expected, the conscious is influenced in its actions by both instincts, and both seek to influence it to the greatest degree possible. Thus, the Thanatos instinct seeks the support of the conscious and achieves it in a relevant percentage (it would be important to know this percentage).
In general, we must also assume that the conscious is not always alert to the very different onslaughts of the Thanatos instinct, in order to reject it or at least not to support it.
Both instincts are a prefigured part of the self and each seeks its support to perform and discharge itself.
Thanatos uses, as we have already mentioned, dozens of masks so that it is not recognized and thus can perform freely, as “part of the self”.
Thus, in a high percentage of its actions it manages to incorporate itself to the will and the actions of the self, and sometimes it also manages to fuse itself to the character and personality of the individual, which in this way the individual self makes it its own and manages to deceive itself that this is its authentic way of thinking, feeling and acting, so that the conscious does not manage to identify it, behind its disguises. In Post AUTOLIBERATION OF NEGATIVE EMOTIONS THROUGH SELF-SUGGESTIONABILITY, we express: “Therefore, the next step is that of tranquility and/or happiness that is achieved through having each one the ‘control’ of our emotions, but not the type of control that we have been taught to practice: repressing them or hiding them, so that others do not see them or do not notice them; and I am referring to the systematic learning to hide them from the eyes of others that ends with our own self-deception of not being able to recognize them in ourselves, or in getting to confuse them by not having them clear and thus unbalancing and preventing our development or emotional maturity, which is often transformed into a neurotic (or deceptive) state, being ourselves the victims of that self-deception”.
On the other hand, and because of that same acceptance and self-deception, there is also the possibility and risk that the conscious turns to the Thanatos instinct and seeks it more frequently, because the subconscious has been invaded by that malignant and destructive drive, and the need arises – at the level of the consciousness – to go through some of the masks that represent the Thanatos instinct completely (in its totality).
Of all the most representative manifestations of Thanatos that we have pointed out above, we will choose only one, punishment, to analyze this negative drive, but all that we will point out about punishing in the human being, will be valid and useful (profitable) to consider for the rest of the other manifestations, in terms of the relationship between Eros and Thanatos.
Punishment is a sensitive volition (predisposition, resolution, will) in the human being that anoints him with power. And it is in this aspect that the Thanatos instinct begins to function.
Every human being has a degree of interference of Thanatos in his interiority. Some more and others less.
The degree of dominance that Thanatos has in the being, is the level that defines how sick that individual is of the need for power. The more Thanatos, the less love he has for life, the less will to live. The less love he has for himself and therefore the less love he has for other human beings and for humanity.
This predisposition to punish works in two scenarios. One is self-punishment, which translates into an instinctive need to punish other people. The other scenario is the need for power that the self needs to level its frustrated personality. It is sick. The way to resolve this imbalance in its personality (an insufficiently developed and formed personality) translates into a need for power, and one of the ways the self uses is to punish – in various ways – other human beings. The diverse forms of punishment can be counted by the thousands, so it is not necessary to try to enumerate them. It is enough to know that all of them are representative and manifestations of the Thanatos instinct that nests in every human being. One of our voluntary actions should be: to permanently “fight culturally and intelligently” against Thanatos, our own and that of the rest of human beings.
I expressed in Post THE GAME AND THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM. PART II. NO TO COMPETITION, YES TO FUN: “The neurotic implication of superiority, expressed in the Potlach can be extended to tips, charity, alms, donations, etc., a neurotic egocentric form disguised as giving gifts to dominate and place oneself above others. A game, a competition, a party?”. This need to have power is found in conditions and attitudes that we do not even imagine. It is very subtle in this, the Thanatos instinct.
The more the human being needs to punish, the higher the level of the Thanatos instinct that dwells in him.
Punishment has always been recognized as part of human nature. In Greek mythology there were 3 deities, the Furies or the Erinias, who represented punishment – among other symbolisms (personifications) -, who lived in hell; these were Tisiphone, Megara and Alecto. In the Greek Furies are represented practically all the violent actions of the human being: assaulting, whipping, punishing, torturing, destroying, beating, warring, harassing, stoning, lynching, sadism, viciousness, cruelty, revenge, etc.
A question I am obliged to ask here is: To what extent can we associate the Thanatos instinct with affections of the emotional type? We might well extend it to mental illnesses, but that would be too much to attach importance to this instinctive solicitation. Of course, we cannot answer this question in this short space and time; however, I would like to comment on neurotic conditions.
I will comment on aspects of the collective unconscious in order to better grasp this emotional inclination. ABSENCE ARCHETYPE: From the Jungian point of view, like all archetypes, it is an absolute and universal concept. This is also a psychic projection or spiritual images (productions) generated in the collective unconscious and that emerge to the consciousness after long periods of time, generated by repeated experiences fundamentally from the most remote times by the observation with the naked eye of the behavior of the stars (the Sun, the Moon, Venus, etc.) following one another, appearing and disappearing, in a reiterative and infinite way in time and space, in such a way that they have been engraved in the collective unconscious. They manifest themselves and reveal themselves to the physical medium in various ways, among them plastic art. It is probable that in this archetype “absence” that I have been defining and studying, the renewal of God can or should be included as one of its forms of manifestation. Jung speaks of this renewal in Psychological Types, volume I, pp. 260 and 298: in the archaic mind it is inscribed that everything must “die” and be “reborn” (God, Jesus, the astral gods, etc. the resurrection); although the archetype “absence” should not be confused with the new, with the ritual of the new, with the restarting of the cycle, of the astrological periods, although they are related: the punishing God for the good, loving God. Also to make a distinction with the analysis of the “revival” of those who lost their lives: the resurrection (resuscitation) of the hero, of the guide, of the redeemer. The ortho of the sun is the new being born from the mother darkness, which defines the cycle of eternal rebirth or eternal return. According to Frazer in his book The Golden Bough, pp. 381 and 378-380, he mentions a mythological manifestation of this archetypal phenomenon, noting: “… whereas the decision of Zeus that Adonis [Tammuz, god of the Semitic peoples of Babylonia and Syria] should remain part of the year under the ground [with Persephone, queen of the nether world] and part above the ground [with Aphrodite, goddess of love], is only the Greek version of the annual disappearance and reappearance of Tammuz [as a religious projection of the movement of the stars, the Sun chiefly, in its daily appearance and disappearance; of the god who dies annually and returns to revive the eternal circle of birth-dying-rebirth]. The Greeks adopted Tammuz in the 7th century B.C., changing the name to Adonis: “The true name of the god was Tammuz, and the appellative Adonis is only the Semitic Adon, ‘Lord,’ an honorific title by which the worshippers addressed him. But the Greeks, by mistake, converted the honorific title into a proper name.” Tammuz is the husband of Istar, goddess of reproduction, the Mother Goddess. Tammuz died every year, a part was hidden and the reproduction on Earth ended. Prophet Ezekiel 8, 14. Tammuz is disputed between Aphrodite and Persephone, between the goddess of love and the goddess of death, so Zeus intervenes to resolve this dispute.
One of the most frequent and pitiful manifestations is that which – consciously or unconsciously – is used by some researchers who attribute negative actions (of those we are mentioning) to ethnic groups, copying or repeating what their minds project (Thanatos) for having read or heard that some other human group carried it out with that destructive instinct, with capital cruelty. I quote my own comments in this regard: “…in most of the plastic representations where the planet Venus appears, we find it symbolizing a warning -and not a punishment- about an event of aggression -warlike or not- that the Mayan people should keep in mind, and not as they have wanted to make it appear, in this type of symbolism, as an aggressive and hostile people”.(*)
Let us return to the center of the subject: Let us see some aspects that we have pointed out in previous posts and that will lead us in the subject. The neurotic uses diverse ways to communicate with the rest of the people, he uses camouflages just like the Thanatos instinct, and it is not only because of this that they identify themselves, but also because this instinctual character can enter into the interiority of the being to separate it from the Eros instinct, facilitating the work of that other that neurotically envelops the healthy part of the ego. “Indeed, this Vicious Circle is fed back by the neurosis itself, which provokes in the individual different neurotic states, which rest on the Inner Need, which takes different specific forms of behavior and attitude towards the apparent reality, Idea of Idealistic Perfectionism (IP), Being Superior to Others (BSO), Egolatry (EG), Having a Higher Power (HP), Egocentrism (EC), Dominating Others (DO), Narcissism (NA), a myriad of neurotic states that invariably lead to depression and anxiety” (Post COMBATING VARIOUS ENEMY HABITS WITH WALK-RWD, SOLUTION TO PROCRASTINATION). In direct words: negative emotions feed back to the Thanatos instinct. We said in Post THE POWER OF EMOTIONS: “We must be aware -know fully- that negative emotions by themselves will not want to 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 by going for a walk”.
We can paraphrase Jung, when he spoke of emotions: Thanatos is the same that has always affected us, referring to primitive and modern man. Jung alluded to the emotions and not to the Thanatos instinct. Surely there are several psychic elements that relate these two characters: Thanatos and Emotions.
We said in Post THE EMOTIONS AND THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM: “How can we avoid diseases generated by uncontrolled emotions? The good functioning of the brain allows a better control and regulation of emotions, provides a better obstruction to the bad ones, to the disturbing ones and to the destructive ones. An individual who maintains a healthy sympathetic system, which is the core of the neurovegetative system, will have less disturbing emotions; in the same way, he/she will be able to face negative emotions more effectively (Vicious Circle), since he/she will be able to regulate them better and keep them under control, and therefore will be able to avoid diseases, since controlled emotions will no longer be able to generate them. In other words, people who do not have a healthy sympathetic system or a healthy brain, fatigued by stress, increase their predisposition to suffer strong emotions of anger, frustration, jealousy, hatred, or any other disturbing, by a slight irritation or by being presented with a slight stimulus of external discomfort”. Is it a coincidence that these states are the same as the covert manifestations of the Thanatos instinct? The practice of walking and the WALK-RWD System operates in two senses and levels: on the one hand, it allows us to recover the feeling of certain pleasant emotions that for various reasons we have come to stop feeling; that is, we will rediscover some of them as if it were the first time; on the other hand, it also helps us to eliminate negative emotions.
Negative emotions and unpleasant habits govern our existence on a daily basis.
I have also expressed: “All the harmful effects coming from negative emotions are generated within a functional imbalance of the brain, and their greater or lesser degree of manifestation is directly related to brain incapacity or fatigue; we know that a healthy state of the brain, freed from exhaustion (from stress, for example), allows, even in very unpleasant situations of emotional imbalance, that the person can recover quickly, because he can better self-control himself and restore his balance immediately. His nervous system will function better, giving him total control over his disturbing emotions.”
“The WALK-RWD system increases the blood irrigation and oxygenation of the brain, which causes a better work of it, and a healthier and healthier functioning, freeing it from fatigue and weakening, giving it strength to better face (discharge generation) destructive emotions.”
“The soul of the walker generates an (invisible) force that seeks to correct emotional, mental and physical aspects. He receives a complete encouragement to his being. That form of ‘physical, mental and emotional animation’ is received by each and every part of the walking person’s organism, which infuses it with an empowering effect.”
“When we are under the influence of a negative emotion, we cannot feel or think about anything else, other than that harmful emotion. However, we must make an effort and go for a walk, because it has been proven that the practice of walking restructures the nervous system, that which is formed by nerve cells, managing to potentiate that 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 sides it is necessary to make immediate decisions.”
“The WALK-RWD System, applying it in an integral way, reading, writing and drawing, while we walk, balances, compensates and harmonizes us in our interiority in relation to negative emotions, and keeps us at a certain healthy distance from unpleasant worries and relationships of all kinds (social, family, school, work, etc.). The system is not only walking but is structured with 3 basic activities (they promote and develop the artistic impulse) that allow evolution and mental and emotional revolution, a permanent exercise that moves us positively and transcendentally towards the future, making us live our existence in the here and now”, inviting – by its own systemic and functional structure – to the effective participation of EROS.
“Writing, as we walk, is the ideal means to be able to know the different ‘vital vessels’ that we have under our emotional psychological domain, by allowing us, by this means, to extract some or several of the elements that make up each vital vessel.”
I have expressed in Post SELF-FREEDOM FROM NEGATIVE EMOTIONS THROUGH SELF-SUGGESTIONABILITY: “Keeping ourselves walking in a recurrent way, we arouse and impel that mental and emotional negations, such as can be, in general, insecurities, prejudices, distrust, hesitations, indecisions, negative ideas, fears, doubts, phobias, manias, hatreds, etc., in any degree of development [of all kinds (category, class) and depth (degree, level)], that have been stored (latent, underlying, hidden, concealed, disguised, potential, silent, furtive, dissimulated, treacherous) within our interiority (our inner being) begin to become positive affirmations, by the mere fact of physically and symbolically moving forward in space and time”; in a single word: let us walk!
To finish with this word Punish, I will quote what I expressed in Post HOMO SOCIABILIS OR SOCIALIS? HUMAN AGGRESSION WALKING IN CROWDED PLACES. PART IV of IX: “This natural attitude of aggressiveness in the human being is observed in diverse actions in social coexistence: How many times have we not been impeded in some action that we wish to perform, by other individuals? Each one of us has hundreds of occurrences (events and anecdotes) of this type. It is a fact that man is not sociable by essence (nature); this is evident in the course of life; as we get older, we become insensitive to our own weaknesses and fears; we no longer need the help of others, and to that extent, we move away from others (until we reach the 3rd age and this is another very different situation); as a natural process to recover our essence of being accompanied with ourselves. So do not panic if you are losing those friends who were dear to you, either because they move away from us or we move away from them. Here we must differentiate between bonds of sociability and bonds of love and reproduction. Sociability is lost, however, the need for love and the instinct of reproduction are maintained. In the latter two, the bonds are maintained almost until the last day of life. Regarding the degree of intensity between men and women, there is a differentiation: in women love persists longer, in men the instinct of reproduction lasts longer. This can be amplified when the confrontation between the instincts Eros and Thanatos is established. In all cases that we have the opposite aspect: good and bad, black and white, day and night, which is almost at all times of life, we can point out the same thing, in that the human being always seeks his natural or essential state, in this post is not to be sociable, although sometimes we get confused and do not know what we really are more: if Eros or Thanatos.”
At the age of 21 I wrote a poem consisting of 2 stanzas, which I would now title EROS VERSUS THANATOS, which goes like this:
LIFE
Life, I have it,
but as if I didn’t have it;
it is an impossibility to try to keep it alive;
Alive, like the desire to live,
like the desire to die
to see if I am really living.
&
In itself, what do I have?
Desire to live or desire to die?
I do not understand;
Why then the desire to die,
if I love the desire to go on living?
END
And another one, of 9 stanzas, at the age of 23:
LIFE AND ITS DEATH
Life: before it, the desire to be;
after it, to cease to be.
Two unreachable poles,
moments that cannot be postponed
inexorably join each other;
one is the day, the other the night.
&
One ends, the other begins.
Links in a chain
that ineluctably comes to break.
&
Pieces joined in different ways,
some are kept, others are forgotten;
true reason to live is to make them remain,
to forget them is to die, it is to end, it is to pass away.
&
To remember them is to persist; to recreate them in order to transcend
to exalt them in a quest for immortality.
To let them be lost is to die,
only death can unite them again.
&
Life: continuity of the work;
human effort invested that must not be abandoned;
work, part of life itself,
important or not for those, but for you;
pain and sweat poured that should not be disdained.
&
Death: end and beginning; beginning and end
that should not be overlooked.
To faint with its pain,
is not to transform it
in conscience, in courage and in strength.
&
And in this endless chain of links,
your being will continue to be present
in the unfathomable mystery of the night.
&
Mystery of life,
anguish of death,
unite the night to the day;
renew the spirit with astonishing fortitude.
do not think that the chain is broken,
only it begins.
&
Death: before it, the desire to be;
after it, not to cease to be!
END
I ask myself: What about my own chain, in those years, how would my Eros and Thanatos get along?
It has been commented at various times that tranquility is the anteroom of happiness; the satisfaction of human needs is the reasoned process by which we can presuppose and define the pleasant over the unpleasant, according to what is available, and hence the self-evaluation of our own happiness for decision making and selecting what is most convenient, valuable and profitable.
In other words, this allows us to become aware of what we are and what we can realize, of what we have, and that we do not know how to enjoy as we can and should, due to that spirit of nonconformity that is fed and governed (governed, administered, manipulated, directed, led, guided, nurtured, sustained) by the open – but unconscious – struggle that these 2 instinctive characters celebrate daily within our intimate being: eros and thanatos, which undoubtedly the impulse to “death” is always defeating and dominating the eros instinct.
The most extreme result would be -in this scenario of not knowing how to live life- from the confrontation between these two characters, as in some cases it happens, to point out ourselves as the character we would like to become.
For the time being, I believe that we must go for a walk to strengthen our self, so as not to allow Thanatos to have the upper hand. Let us strengthen our Eros instinct by going for a walk every morning.
Last minute note: Before I say goodbye, with all that is happening regarding Artificial Intelligence, I invite you to read the last book that I published on Amazon on February 20, entitled “ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PROMPTS AS A SECOND LANGUAGE”, Kindle Edition. I have been so amazed to discover this new technology that I would like everyone to get involved in it; for this reason, I decided to exercise and managed to find certain techniques and ways to develop questions to this type of tool, which I am sure will serve to obtain almost all the answers required in most areas of knowledge and activities of human beings, in a precise, fast and effective way.
The way you ask is the formula to get your answers. You have to experience it for yourself.
Loya Pinera, Rodrigo & Loya Lopategui, Carlos, Artificial Intelligence Prompts as a Second Language, EMULISA, USA, 2023, Kindle Edition
(*) Loya Lopategui, Carlos, Dintornism in Ancient Mayan Plastic Art, EMULISA, México, 2012.
While in Post WALKING AND FREEDOM we talked about that path where we feel free to develop any activity or action, that is, the freedom of oneself, personal freedom, now we must analyze that other path where the other essential part of freedom of the human being is found, that other one where we must walk to reach it as an existential longing or as a metaphysical reality, that freedom that we know exists, but perhaps we do not understand it. And here will be the first step we take, answering the following question: Should we look for it and lead our steps to reach it, to be accompanied by it, or should we only try to feel free?
The concept of freedom has been described and registered as “one of the highest human feelings”, but is freedom just a romantic feeling, or is it an instinctive need? Is it an unconsummated longing a failed and inaccessible hope? An emotional mirage, fickle in its versatility and fickle in its fragility or capriciousness, a sentimental obsession, a subjective daydream or an unobjectable reality? Is freedom an unattainable ideal, a chimera, a metaphysical reality? We know that it is a cause of life, that it gives meaning to our life; but that it is also a cause of division, discord and competition.
In general, we can speak of two SUMMITS, which, without being the only ones, could encompass most of the different types and qualities of freedom, and therefore our need for freedom: psychological freedom: of the spiritual, soul, mental and metaphysical type (inner freedom); and physical, civil, political, economic freedom, with all its rights, of worship, of association, of expression and others (outer freedom).
Depending on the field of action or thought or ideology of the human being, we can speak of different paths that lead us to freedom, although all of them, in essence, mean practically the same thing: to lead us to civil freedom or inalienable rights regarding the life of the individual, which implies political, religious, ideological, educational freedom; which in turn include a wide range of specific freedoms according to the fields of action or conceptual to which they refer; and also to lead us to the other freedom, the psychological, mental, spiritual.
In itself, we can imagine that we must climb two types of frank SUMMIT (frank paths), which can lead us, each with its essential characteristics, one physical and the other psychological, to reach freedom.
Before analyzing these two conceptual paths, let’s talk a little about what freedom itself is.
Understanding what the concept of freedom is, it is quite complex; knowing the different approaches that have been formulated over time to explain how we should discover, achieve, feel and exercise it is an arduous task. As a sample of these complexities (crossroads, difficulties), the 103 opinions and points of view that I collected and are shown in my book Freedom 103 (*), issued by an equal number of men and women who studied and wrote about this subject, are enough. For this reason, I have presented in this Post a path that can bring us closer to its understanding, bifurcating it into 2 broad functional branches (of action): the physical and the psychological.
Although these names allow us to distinguish them in two clear and constructive categories, they could be modified, depending on the intellectualized perspective used. That is to say, one could schematize less by increasing the number of paths that lead us to its conception, but truly, I could not assure that it would help us better in that path. It is a representation that has been formulated in my mind after many years of “ruminating” around this concept and consulting about 400 books (physical and digital) that I have in my library that talk about this difficult subject of freedom.
In each of these viable and perspicuous and intelligible categories l have to respond to the following aspects:
Simple or complex?
Plain or rugged?
Natural or artificial?
Broad or limited?
Extensive or diffuse?
Liberal or totalitarian?
Tolerant or intolerant?
Reactionary or anarchic?
Prodigal or insufficient?
True or fictitious?
Certain or uncertain?
Conditional or unconditional?
Fair or unfair?
Clear or twisted?
Open or closed?
Positive or negative?
Restrictive or …?
As can be seen, giving a precise answer to each of these questions is not an easy task either.
Let’s move forward and start our analysis.
It is one thing to approach the concept of freedom through certain complicated paths, and another to approach freedom itself, to discover it, to feel it and to exercise it. Perhaps this is more difficult.
The first scenario I have decided to carry out in the future Post THE WALK OF 20 THINKERS ON THE CONCEPT OF FREEDOM, which I have divided into 3 Parts, which I will present in due time.
The second scenario of How to approach freedom itself! Will be dealt with in this Post.
Anyone would say that first we should focus on analyzing the 1st scenario. Logically so: first understand the “thing” and then get to it.
The reason is very simple as to why I reverse the process of forging a personal and special inherence of freedom. The practice of walking is the ideal means to orient us towards it, and in this case our summons (instigation, induction) is not metaphorical. The walk is an analogical preamble to enter its threshold and this will facilitate us to go deeper into its conceptualization, which in turn, will guide us to choose which of its paths and bifurcations we are inclined to, according to our personalities and attitudes, and of course to our own social, economic and cultural positions.
1047-518-MOKSA (LIBERATION)
PHYSICAL STAGE TOWARDS FREEDOM.
What are the aspects that give this scenario, the physical? It is fundamentally conditioned by social, civilizational, political, economic and commercial dispositions.
It is not possible to hierarchize the different environments and conditioning factors that make up this stage, so our task is to analyze them in an order that I consider convenient, but does not mean hierarchy, importance or subordination.
I consider in the conformation of this physical scenario 8 functional paths that lead us to freedom:
1. Civil path.
Belonging to society. Being a citizen.
Citizen rights and obligations.
Every person, as a member of society, is entitled to social security.
2. Social path.
Relationships that people acquire by belonging to a society.
Social contract. To have the social circumstances to develop the conditions of all kinds of a social group, guaranteeing the human being the natural development of all his physical and mental faculties.
To achieve social welfare.
All human beings have the right to social and economic security and education.
All individuals, men and women, have the right to have a job, as well as the guarantee to rest.
For all individuals there must be legal equality, political equality, freedom of association, freedom of expression and the right to universal suffrage.
3. Political path
Rights that individuals have or acquire to administer public affairs or participate in the government of a state and country.
The political path leads to the observance of the natural and imprescriptible rights of the human being. To achieve democracy in all countries of the world. To seek the application of democratic freedoms.
All individuals have political rights.
All people, men and women, have the right to participate in the government of their country.
For all individuals there is political equality and the right of universal suffrage.
4. Human Rights Path
Human Rights are those from which emanate the guiding principles that guarantee the freedom of the human being. Rights over life, existence and freedom itself.
Avoid injustice and discrimination.
Every individual is obliged to respect the human rights of others and fundamentally the right to live and freedom, as well as the legal precepts from which emanate the guiding principles that guarantee those human rights and individual guarantees, precepts on which are based the rest of the legal and administrative figures emptied in the various governing bodies of citizenship and other economic, political and social activities of the citizens of any country, as well as the rest of the laws and legal regulations that exist in the society of each nation.
Slavery is prohibited. The slave trade is prohibited in all its forms.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
5. Individual Guarantees Path
They are the legal precepts on which the governing bodies of citizenship, both social economic and political, are based for the provision of legal and administrative figures that are used in citizen regulation.
Guarantee of respect for human rights.
All human beings are born free.
All individuals have the right to move freely and to choose their residence. They also have the right to leave their country and to return to their country. They also have the right to a nationality, to private, individual and collective property, and no one may be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
6. Partnership Path
Seek a balance between duties and rights. It seeks respect and protection of human rights in general. Seek equality, right to life and avoid discrimination.
For all individuals there is freedom of association.
7. Religious Path
All human beings have the right to their freedom of belief.
All individuals have the right to religion.
Everyone has the right to freedom of religion, the freedom to change his religion or belief, as well as the freedom to manifest his religion or belief, individually and collectively, both in public and in private, by teaching, practice, worship and observance.
8. Path of Expression
For all individuals there exists the freedom and the right of expression and thought.
All persons, men and women, have the right to freedom of opinion and expression and also to disseminate them, regardless of frontiers, by any means of expression.
To assist in the full exercise of human rights, guaranteeing the development of human beings and their individual freedoms. To prevent the violation of human rights worldwide.
All individuals have the right to freedom of thought and conscience.
All individuals have the right to information.
All of these paths refer to an external freedom and all of them are interrelated, juxtaposed and contain a very important link when they are unveiled before the concept of freedom.
CULTURAL STAGE TOWARDS FREEDOM
On this scenario we can walk taking into account the cultural aspects (**), that is to say, with respect to taking into account, on the one hand, the cultural factors that intervene in this stage, we can point out that 1) culture is a formation of the spirit; 2) culture is the organization of the inner world (personal life) and 3) culture tends to satisfy the essential desire of the human being; a bifurcation that is intertwined with the unconscious, subconscious, psychic, emotional aspects.
I consider in the conformation of this cultural scenario 6 functional paths that lead us to freedom:
1. Psychological path
The psychic causes that explain human behavior, in search of individual freedom, both in a conscious and unconscious state.
2. Spiritual path
Study of the causes that guide the knowledge of people’s spiritual behavior, searching for freedom of the spiritual type (art and religion).
3. Soul path
The soul behavior of individuals, in relation to their position with respect to inner freedom.
4. Emotional path
Study of the emotional states of the being in an analysis of both external and internal freedom.
5. Mental path
State of mind and knowledge of the individual in relation to his social environment, in search of freedom.
6. Metaphysical path
This path is defined by the search for freedom without taking into account the causes that obstruct it. That is to say, it is sought within the natural aspects – not supernatural – but beyond ordinary analysis and transcending known and habitual thoughts.
As in the physical scenario, all of these paths are interrelated, juxtaposed and contain a very important linkage when they are unveiled before the concept of freedom, but they are referred to inner freedom.
The complexity of achieving freedom can be seen by the mere fact that it is necessary to consider the paths of both scenarios in order to reach it. That is to say, it implies the sum of these efforts and not the choice of one or the other. This is what objectively represents to feel it and its achievement: the complementarity of several efforts (work, struggles, battles), since it is indispensable to travel through all these paths for its unveiling and exercise.
Now, I am going to transmute the word “freedom” for that “liberation”, with the precise objective of evaluating how much -and how- the WALK-RWD System and walking can help us to reach it.
For it, simply on the one hand, I will summarize what I have tried to transmit -in the hundred posts that I have published in the Blog- about the multiple aspects that the WALK-RWD System helps us to free ourselves considerably:
– Fatigue
– Boredom
– Negative emotions
– Blockage in artistic creation
– Harmful habits
– Aches and pains
– Discouragement
– Monotony
– Discouragement
– Obesity
– Procrastination
– Sedentariness
– Bad mood
– Illnesses
– Physical dysfunctions
– Irregularity at work
– Negative performance at work
– Indifference and disinterest
– Pessimism
– Pain
– Inner restlessness
– Abnormal loneliness (psychic)
This series allows us to know in how many ways we could free ourselves from all these aspects that restrict and condition us in our daily behavior.
There is also, on the other hand, a similar number of physical, mental, cultural, artistic, etc., aspects that provide us, directly and efficiently, the knowledge of how to achieve personal freedom, which of course are behavioral guidelines:
– Better govern Abstraction
– Improved concentration
– Propitiate Contemplation
– Improve Creativity
– Increase Efficiency and Productivity
– Performing Physical Exercises
– Promoting Positive Emotions
– Substantial Improvement in Enthusiasm
– Writing
– Encouragement of Positive Habits
– Playing
– Reading
– Facilitating and encouraging Meditation
– Increasing Motivation
– Use of free time
– Availability and use of leisure time
– Increased passion in accomplishing things
– Expansion of creative thinking
– Facilitating and improving personal fulfillment
– Encouraging physical, mental, emotional and sentimental Relaxation
– Increased resilience
– Improved sexuality
– Increased production of organic substances
– Improved availability of time
– Positive and beneficial solitude
In these two meanings of the concept of liberation, we observe that one of them means the elimination of “behaviors and afflictions” that trap (reach, apprehend, imprison) the human being, independently of his social or economic position, which could well lead us to think of a negative freedom, under the concepts of liberation from negative aspects, of freeing ourselves from something; the other meaning means the improvement -in quantity and quality- of his diverse actions in his daily proceeding (acting, production), which could well guide us to think of positive freedom since it places us in freedom to perform positive actions.
Let us walk these 2 routes that are impregnable summits with the objective of glimpsing in some way to feel free, the recommendation is to start climbing them and the best way is to experience Freedom by walking, applying the WALK-RWD System in an integral way. I have no doubt that when I start walking I begin -immediately- to feel parts of that” lady Freedom” that begins to touch me with its miraculous influences.
Walking means that we can express ourselves by ourselves, seeking liberation from negativities and pursuing the freedom to satisfy our needs.
I invite you to give it a try. Let’s reverse the process of forging an inherent freedom of our own; let’s go meet that lady, feel her, and then inquire into her conceptualization. Let us first feel its content and leave for later the knowledge of what is said about it. Let us perceive her first and perhaps then we will understand her better. All that is needed is a small personal effort -walking is free and liberating- and to place ourselves on the path; a situation that we can affirm will be magical. Let us walk and seek to hold on to his hand.
Let us pursue and reach for freedom as we walk. Let us seek to walk in order to be free.
In “walking” we generate an essentially human freedom.
(**)DEFINITION OF CULTURE: In order to clarify the concept of culture, we will resort to what Paul Diel expresses: “Civilization is an intellectual formation; culture is a formation of the spirit. Civilization is the organization of the external world (social life); culture is the organization of the internal world (personal life). Civilization tends to satisfy multiple desires; culture tends to satisfy the essential desire, in Diel, Paul, Psychoanalysis of divinity, F.C.E., Mexico, 1974, pp. 71-72.
Indeed, a human characteristic is that cellular replenishment is self-generated in a given time, taking 7 months to replenish the equivalent of a human body.
I will try to be synthetic in order to present objectively how the WALK-RWD System can collaborate incisively in this process of cellular regeneration.
The smallest functional and structural unit of the human body, which generates its own energy, is the cell.
All the cells of the human body produce their own energy by generating certain substances such as proteins, which are fundamental for the growth and development of the human body, as well as allowing them to rebuild and restore tissues and structures that have suffered deterioration and wear and tear. The general process of cellular functioning or metabolism allows the cell to manufacture its own nutritional substances or anabolism, and also to produce other substances or catabolism, which can be distributed in several stages, namely:
1 Introduction of the nutritive substances into the cell.
2. Absorption of oxygen
3. Use and assimilation of the nutritive substances inside the cells.
4. Energy production
5. Elimination of waste substances
6. Cell division
Within this metabolic process, one of the fundamental elements used by cells is oxygen. Being able to absorb oxygen, the cell generates oxidation on some of its own constituent parts; when this oxidation is carried out, the cell releases energy and at the same time generates carbon dioxide, which will be discarded later.
This part of the metabolic process of oxygen absorption (cellular respiration) is the essential mechanism that all cells develop.
The stage of use and assimilation of nutritive substances produces a self-generation and growth in its protoplasm so that it is reconstituted – the protoplasm – and the cell grows. When the substances come into contact with oxygen, they undergo oxidation. This procedure takes place throughout the protoplasm (cell movement and circulation) and the flow of nutritive material with oxygen is constantly distributed. Waste substances are eliminated when they reach the outer surface of the cell.
The availability of the quantity and quality of oxygen is essential for the cells to fulfill their functions, in addition to its regularity and harmony in its supply.
Let us keep in mind that oxygen together with the cells are responsible for the rejuvenation (preservation, renovation, stability, repair, regeneration, reestablishment, permanence, restoration and recovery) and aging of our organism in general terms, from the cell itself, as the simplest unit, to the most complex organs of our body.
This is where the WALK-RWD System makes its appearance.
I repeat verbatim the following 4 paragraphs: We have related 22 different varieties of walking and all of them allow us to develop a favorable exercise for our health, of the aerobic type. That is to say, by performing and applying aerobic dynamisms we generate oxygenation of the whole body, including the brain, we improve blood circulation and collateral circulation, as well as memory function and benefiting determinantly the cardiac activity. The important thing is to walk, always walk, and do some of the activities inherent to the WALK-RWD System, whether it is reading, writing, or drawing, in a combined way.
Many of the physiological problems that we suffer and that we have mentioned in previous posts, related to the fundamental systems, such as the digestive, cardiovascular or circulatory, respiratory, bone system and the neuro vegetative, can be prevented and corrected and maintained healthy with walking and the execution of the WALK-RWD System; in the same way, the functions and tasks of the neurocerebral system can be kept healthy, as we have already mentioned, the WALK-RWD increases the blood irrigation and the oxygenation of the brain, which causes a better work and a healthier and healthier functioning, freeing it from fatigue and weakening, giving it strength to face (discharge generation) better the destructive emotions.
We know that the brain is oxygenated when we exercise, it is true, surely certain types of substances are produced that fully favor the functioning of some of the physical-organic systems of the body, as well as fundamental parts of the brain, which have remained dormant, favoring and stimulating their functions (physiological-mental).
It is not completely returning to the past, because modern man does not walk to hunt, not to gather fruits, not to graze, not to cut roots; he walks to exercise all his muscles (almost 100% of them) and his bone structure. The results (physical and mental effects) of walking are exactly the same since archaic times: exercise, blood circulation, oxygenation of the whole body and brain, and positive functional impact on all organs and body and physiological systems.
We must take into account that not every type of exercise generates good oxygenation of the cells. If we get very stressed or if we do extreme sports or if we run certain dangers, etc. we will see that our organism will not respond in the same way, since it will dedicate part of its energy to counteract the production of certain substances that are not favorable for the good performance of the cellular nutrition and to correct some negative emotions.
The WALK-RWD System is conceived so that the activity of walking and those of reading, writing, and drawing, are all of them safe and enjoyable means, where the practitioner does not run any risk inherent to the system and only performs what keeps him healthy, calm, and fully enjoyed.
The activity of walking in a natural way is in itself an appropriate mechanism to properly oxygenate the nutritional process of the cells. We do not have to set any limits or parameters for it, but simply to walk normally; the rest will be developed by our body on its own.
Now, lately there has been a lot of talk about FREE RADICALS. What are free radicals? They are molecules that have gone into disequilibrium because they have lost one or more electrons, so their need to restore their equilibrium causes a reposition-opposition circle that has repercussions on considerable groups of cells.
Each molecule that replaces its lost electron transforms the molecule that took its electron into a Free Radical, and so on. These switches cause molecular perturbations and cell damage, which in turn can lead to cell death.
Free radicals are necessary in the organism for the realization of several fundamental functions and also to maintain a healthy level of the organism, for example, our immune system generates its own free radicals which allows it to face harmful agents; however, it also happens that this process of circular reposition-opposition, which alters the balance of electrons in the cell membranes, generates a negative state in the organism.
How is this lethal circle resolved? It is clear that molecular stability is attempted to be resolved by localizing electrons in other molecules, but invariably results in an unstable circle. This circle is a process of oxidation (oxidative stress) generated by the imbalance between the unstable molecules and the organic capacity to neutralize the molecular perturbation produced.
However, stability is achieved by means of a natural mechanism that the organism itself manages to neutralize this lethal circle, through antioxidants, with a natural antioxidant process.
These antioxidants are molecules that manage to prevent the oxidation generated by Free Radicals, which have the capacity to yield a variable number of electrons without losing their stability.
How is the balance of electrons in molecules lost? The causes are diverse: nutrition, emotional imbalances, environmental pollution, chemical substances in processed foods (preservatives, sweeteners, colorants, etc.), oxygen in the air and the sun’s rays.
How can the balance be restored by external agents, with an external antioxidant process? Through a good diet, pharmaceutical substances and components, vitamins, and exercise.
Let us keep in mind that Free Radicals are responsible for the aging (decay, degeneration) of our organism in general terms, from the cell, as the simplest unit, to the most complex organs of our body.
Now, this seems to be a contradiction. We were saying that carrying out the metabolic process in the cell requires the absorption of oxygen, which is the fundamental element used by the cells for their production and growth. This with the assimilation of other nutritive substances generates growth and reconstitution of its protoplasm. In all this nutritional and self-recreation process, oxygen plays a central role.
We also mentioned that in order to produce and release energy, the cell generates oxidation on some of its own constituent parts and that this oxidation can provoke an imbalance between the unstable molecules and the organic capacity to neutralize the molecular perturbation produced.
The answer to this paradox is, as we have already mentioned, to have the quantity and quality of oxygen available for the cells to carry out their functions in a balanced way, without producing harmful oxidation.
Walking itself, I repeat, is a natural activity in the human being, an appropriate mechanism to properly oxygenate the nutritional process of the cells. We do not have to point out any limits or parameters for it, but simply to walk normally; the rest will be developed by our body by itself as it will take and process the necessary oxygen, with regularity and harmony.
Let us walk to rebuild and restore the tissues that have aged, suffered deterioration and wear and tear, and to balance, in this natural way, the molecules that have lost those electrons.
