Most Americans struggle to do five push-ups and less than half can do 10 consecutive ones. Clearly, physical strength is on the decline.
In middle-age men, the Harvard study pointed to an association between push-up capacity and heart health. This isn’t just about showing off and being macho, it is clearly an investment in longevity and disease prevention.
I remember when I was a kid and in physical education (gym class), we would have to perform the Canada Fitness Test. This would involve things like push-ups, sit ups, bent arm hangs, and the likes. Some of these are definitely hard exercises and become harder for adults for a variety of reasons. They all have functional value. Unfortunately, the government, the Ministry of Education, or whoever, decided that these were not important things. They have been taken out of the curriculum for quite some time. Now it seems everyone just gets a participation ribbon.
Watch My Rant Here:
However, this is more than just about physical strength. It’s clear that physical strength is waning. Those of us who put great efforts into maintaining our physicality and health can look around and see that we are the exception. It seems anytime you look at photos from 30, 40, or 50 years ago or more, the ratio of people who were unfit and/or obese as far less than it is now. Sadly, our culture promotes sedentary lifestyles, excessive consumption of hyper-palatable, calorically high unhealthy foods as the standard. This has resulted in more and more people struggling to engage in enough movement and exercise to not just get the physique benefits but, even more importantly, the health benefits that are so very crucial for a healthspan, (i.e., the length of ones life that you remain vital, high functioning, and healthy).
The current medical recommendations are 150 minutes of physical activity per week which amounts to a little over 20 minutes a day. This could even just be walking. That’s certainly not inaccessible and a very low hanging fruit for most. The medical recommendations are for 90 minutes a week (2-3 sessions) of resistance training as well.
As far as nutrition goes, people have 24-hour access to foods that offer very little nutrient value, but a whole lot of calories, fat, sugar, and salt - creating bliss point reactions and perpetuating overeating due to dopamine releases that have been carefully crafted by the industry. The best food scientists, neuroscientists, behavioral psychologists, and marketers are hard at work for these companies, building food-like products that entrance and hypnotize the general public into passively overeating while leading them down a slippery slope of sickness, disease, and fatigue.
So, the population gets physically weaker. However, we seem to be getting mentally weaker too. In fact, we seem to be getting mentally, emotionally, socially, and even spiritually weaker as well.
I touched upon this in my last week’s article, The Zombie Apocalypse is Here: 7 Origins & 7 Examples and my video podcast. Feel free to go back and reference it for the examples and origins of this “zombie apocalypse” eating the brains and reasoning faculties of our fellow citizens. I will try not to repeat myself here, but there is some overlap.
Once again, this falls into this month’s theme taken from Jiddu Krishnamurti’s quote: “It’s no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society”.
He also communicated the following pertinent piece:
Is society healthy, that an individual should return to it? Has not society itself helped to make the individual unhealthy? Of course, the unhealthy must be made healthy, that goes without saying; but why should the individual adjust himself to an unhealthy society? If he is healthy, he will not be a part of it. Without first questioning the health of society, what is the good of helping misfits to conform to society?
Let’s not focus too much on the spread of mental weakness here. That was covered in the article and video I just referenced. Instead, let’s delve into the other areas which are increasing in fragility.
Ways We Are Getting Weaker
1. Emotionally
I) People are way too easily offended.
It really doesn’t seem to need much explanation. Everywhere we turn there is outrage. Perhaps some of it is warranted but it is often aimed at fairly benign cultural items that have no intent of harm. Comedy is regularly under attack as is music and other entertainment.
Cancel culture is merciless and ceaseless in its pursuit of those who do not impeccably follow the agenda and the ‘political correctness manual’.
II) Trauma is a term thrown around too loosely.
People claim to be traumatized by things that just would not be considered traumatizing in the past, nor can they be considered traumatizing compared to experiences other people go through and still manage to function at high levels. This is not to say that trauma is not individualized and relative, but it is to say there is some looseness in which we claim trauma. And then people fall into self-sabotaging traps of weakness by being defined by it.
III) Victim mentality is pervasive and prolific.
So many people see themselves as a victim and give away their power. I’ll admit that at times, somewhat unconsciously, I saw myself as a victim of the corruption and overreach of the government, of toxic industry practices, and various other forces that are very real in the world around us. I’m not saying that the deleterious effects of these forces do not exist. In fact, I think they very much do exist. However, we tend to give them more power than they truly have directly on our daily lives. Perseverating on their influence and holding them up as being unstoppable and ubiquitous in their impact on our lives diminishes our own power. In my opinion, it is key to take control where we can and even in the face of Goliath find our inner David.
2. Socially
IV) People struggle to relate to others.
Perhaps the pandemic exacerbated this, but people clearly are struggling to socialize in the real world (and in healthy ways, online too). People’s ability to actively listen, maintain eye contact, and traverse awkward silences seem to be more prevalent than ever before.
V) People default to their devices.
You would not be hard-pressed to walk into a restaurant and see a table where phones are in every hand instead of conversation taking place over food and drink. Often the source of a shared story is an image or video on someone’s smart phone being pass around in an attempt to sooth the group’s inability to connect through the almost extinct practice of unassisted conversation.
VI) Deep, lengthy and complete communication is disappearing.
People’s ability to communicate in long form and grammatically correct sentences seems to have been compromised as well. Perhaps this has to do with the prevalence of texting and the rapid, short replies of social media. People prefer the use of contrived acronyms like like TTYL or LMK over the actual words and proper sentences.
What happened to full sentences?
Are they too cumbersome to make the transition to our future?
The issue here is that communication is truly the conduit between two or more human’s inner worlds. The clearer the messaging the greater our comprehension is of the other. This neo-pseudo-communication can be hazy and understanding is often patchy. When this is the case, connection will never be as deep or robust. It is this lack of connection that drives fragmentation between individuals, groups, and other social divisions.
3. Spiritually
On the heels of the pandemic and its infamous maxims of “trust the experts“, and “follow the science“, people seem to have returned to a gatekeeper-oriented, top down approach in everything that has to do with directing their lives. This is the case as it applies to medical science, government regulations, and the ideas around how to have a functioning human society.
Spiritual strength can be a reflection on one’s ability to weather challenging storms.
Spiritual strength resists victim mentality.
Spiritual strength finds hope even in despair.
Spiritual strength does not simply surrender personal agency to the most commanding organizational authority.
It is exactly in these sort of times when spiritual strength can be an inoculant to the threats of tyranny, the posturing of megalomaniacs, and the corrosive worshiping of shiny objects, trends, and ‘next things’. Unfortunately, it seems too many people are unable to dig deep and find the strength of their spirit. Still, I believe the indomitable spirit will persevere and rise above the destabilizing noise of our times and the nagging doubts of our reptilian brain stem.
The fortitude of our emotional, social, and spiritual capacities clearly influence our physical and cognitive strength as well.
Perhaps you see things differently. Perhaps you think we’re getting stronger. Let me know what you think and how you see this. I would welcome it.
A phrase that comes to my mind often these days that seems to capture our current zeitgeist quite well is:
Strong men bring good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men bring tough times. Tough times create strong men.
Earlier, I communicated how our current culture promotes comfort, convenience, and gluttony. This is true in terms of functioning around nutrition but also in many other ways. The societal prevalence of excess breeds weakness.
It is through challenge that we grow. It is through struggle that we get stronger. Just as a muscle needs to be pushed close to its failure for it to grow and adaption to be signaled, so too is this likely accurate for all the other aspects of our life. Whether it be strengthening our spirit, developing our mind, honing our emotional resilience and regulation, or building our social capacity, facing discomfort - even seeking discomfort - seems to be the way to fortify ourselves for a greater well-being that can sustain the ups and downs of life.
One question, which I also brought up in my last writing and video:
Is the weakness we are seeing being intentionally pushed or is it merely a symptom and an unintended consequence of the comforts of our current society and cultural proclivities?
I don’t claim to know the answer with certainty, but I do think it behooves us to imagine what forces might want to intentionally push these things.
Who stands to gain from the weakening of the populace?
Ask yourself this. Share your answers in the comments.
Great summary. I do think weakness is being intentionally pushed. Media is clearly pushing reasons to be outraged. Media is clearly controlled. Being emotionally weak and intolerant predisposes to manipulation. If people are unable to deal with situations that are less than preferable, even temporarily, they will seek bandaids and distractions and fall into despair when they are not immediately available.
A fearless population is impossible to control. People are no longer just afraid of existential threats. They are now afraid of temporary inconveniences and difficult conversations.