It's interesting for me to read about people who are doing something that's very similar to what I do but also very different. I'm intent on seeing the sunrise and I have a number of steps I need to do to get to my vantage point (about 1700 steps each way, according to my iPhone), but I have a lot of differences: I do it every day (not once a week), I don't have a set of physical exercises to do when I get there (I take photographs), I don't meet up with a group or have any sort of club.
And I feel distanced from notions like "tactical breathing" and "mind and body detox" and "special type of personality." Just to harp on that last one, what is this "special type of personality"?! That's off-putting, suggesting that most people should just forget about it and leave it to hyper-disciplined freaks. I know I wouldn't have regarded myself as the "special type."
I do regard it as a spiritual experience but I would not want an instructor of any kind speaking to me, especially speaking to me as a member of a group and stressing fitness and breathing. I could imagine an idealized guru speaking to me is just the absolutely perfect way, but better than nothing is, in this case, a very high standard.
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It'd be like bringing the Peloton community along with you for your peaceful morning sunrise walk. Peloton people being precisely why we need quiet, meditative morning walks.
Exercise is the fun part of the day. You can train your mind to look forward to anything. You can also train your brain to like the taste of different foods. You can't overcome foods that have the "Yuck" taste. Those are either hard coded or we haven't figured it out yet. But anything that tastes "meh" can be turned into "yum" and vice versa.
Most people train their brain to want to sit in front of a TV and eat chips. I think it is the commercials. People are now training themselves to think being fat and torpid is fun.
This can go both ways and the giant corporations that drive our culture are pushing a particular type of food and lifestyle.
I plan on making videos on how I trained myself to like salad for instance. And how going to the gym is a break that I look forward to. And completing 6 or 7 of the tasks I list for the day drives dopamine release.
The problem with climbing 1000 stairs is there are only so many hours in the day. I don't know how many stairs their are or what the total vertical climb is so I don't know how long it would take me.
I'm impressed and inspired that you do it everyday, Ann.
Those photos near Hong Kong are nice. Makes it look so pristine.
I have a friend who lived in Hong Kong for a few years. He said some days the pollution in the city was so bad, he did not want to venture out of his high rise apartment. If he did - he felt the need to shower... again.
Althouse said...
It's interesting for me to read about people who are doing something that's very similar to what I do but also very different.
Coincidentally, I have a similar ritual where I drive to a highway rest stop on Saturday nights.
Whatever helps people create a structure that helps them move their body more and more everyday is a good thing.
Stair climbing and hill climbing in my opinion is the best form of land based locomotion exercise. It was ingrained at a young age on the crew running up and down the stadium stairs and up old San Marcos Pass and Painted Cave road.
I recall Mao writing, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." So does climbing athousand stairs. Being a special kind of person is tautological here, as only those who climb the stairs are those speical kinds of people who climb the stairs. It is a small compliment, not a conditional limitation on your personhood. Of course, like Marx said, "I wouldn't join a club that would have someone like me as a member."
Good think the lake path has no, or at least, fewer stairs than this self-elevation to sunrise.
Tactical breathing is where the money is.
I could imagine an idealized guru speaking to me is just the absolutely perfect way, but better than nothing is, in this case, a very high standard.
I think it is an impossible standard at least on a daily basis.
You can show people how to change what they like and what they want. The morning routine is vital to this. After that you have to let them go.
The biggest issue is everyone is different and wants different things. The key to this is understanding that you are trying to help a person become what they want, not what the instructor wants. We have too many people telling us what we want.
Most of our current societal issues stem from people trying to control others and telling them what they should want and how they should feel and what we should do.
Achilles, the remote control is what made us all TV couch potato persons, not commercials. Today we can surf other shows during commercials thanks to the little handheld controller. Before this invention, unless we had kids to change the channel for us during commercials, we had to arise for a few minutes during every hour to change the channel ourselves, unless we were willing to watch commercials. This activity, this movement, kept us all thinner than we are now.
I have hiked in that area. It is absolutely stunningly beautiful. I never have imagined HK had areas like that while I was walking around Kowloon. Apparently it pays to get out of the city sometimes.
I live on Lantau and have walked up that hill (Pagoda Hill) many times. Tho never at dawn…
By the way Mikee @10:52: it wasn’t Mao wot said “A journey of a thousand miles…” It’s Daoist (Taoist) saying from Chuangzi. Mao was a plagiarising scoundrel (among his many other rather more serious errors)
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