There are levers available in our lives that can be far more effective at getting us better results, greater advantages, and heightened protection against harm, disease, and despair. Leaning on these seems to be wise. If we utilize the Pareto principle (the 80-20 rule) in terms of where our efforts go, then a focused 20% of our energy can lead to 80% of our improvements. In my opinion, this is the way to live, both for the present and for whatever is coming down the pipeline.
WATCH THE VIDEO PODCAST:
What are these levers?
I like to frame them in relation to strength. I have touched upon physical strength, mental strength, and emotional strength in my last three article here, here, and here. Now let’s explore the more external interfaces of strength, in terms of the social, environmental, adaptive, and spiritual aspects of ‘being strong’.
Beyond putting enough effort into gaining physical strength by prioritizing it and working out on a regular basis, beyond refining one’s mental acuity through focus and avoidance of distraction, beyond gaining emotional regulation through regulating practices - regularly and consistently - how we interact with the world around us will fundamentally change the results we get.
External Strengths for a World Gone Mad
Social Strength
It is likely we will have to make sacrifices. If everyone is drinking, we probably will not. If everyone is discussing the latest pop-culture TV show, it’s likely we will not know the references. If everyone is buying into the same narrative, it’s likely we will see something different. This can interfere with our social lives. This can break relationships. This can take a toll on our desire to interact with the world.
Unfortunately, to be a lion - or as Nietzsche labeled it, an Übermensch - you cannot graze on grass with the herd. At times, this is lonely, painful, alienating. It is not the easy path, but no path to strength is easy. In fact, by its very definition, the path to greater strength requires challenge, resistance, and overcoming.
How bad do you want it? How hungry are you?
The good news is that along the way, you will find your pride away from the herd. There are other lions out there. Your roar will signal them.
Beyond the move to being a non-herd animal, navigating relationships with people is key to our survival and ability to improve our lot. Perhaps the most important difference between humans and animals is the complex level of cooperation that occurs in human communities. This feature has been fundamental for our species to move up the food chain and face threats and/or challenges that exceed our physical (and mental) capabilities as individuals.
Cultivating a better understanding of psychology, community dynamics, teamwork, and leadership can go a long way.
Environmental Strength
This isn’t just about a green approach to the world. In fact, it’s a greater understanding of how we are continuously and perpetually interfacing with our natural environment and our manufactured environment. It’s an understanding that there are natural cues that elevate us towards greater health and strength; and there are others that pull us down. To harness the power of these signals requires an awareness of how to mitigate the downgrading cues and how to optimize opportunities for enrichment and greater health.
If you want a deeper dive into this subject based in circadian biology and framed in an academic paper here is the article I wrote in 2017. It is heavily cited and references other resources.
In the terms I have briefly alluded to above (and in significant detail in my Aligning with the Sun article), environmental strength requires an ability to veer away from some of the comforts and conveniences of modernity which create an environment-biology mismatch and harness the lessons of evolutionary biology through more ancestral practices.
Briefly, a few of the levers here are:
LIGHT:
Allowing unfiltered morning light - that is, without sunblock, sunglasses or a window interrupting the wavelength - to hit the retina in the eye (which signals the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the hypothalamus) to notify our entire body of what time it is. This results in a cascade of physiological processes which align our biology with our environment. This optimizes environmental strength.
TEMPERATURE: Embracing the hormetic stressor of temperature fluctuation
In other words, experiencing the discomfort of cold and heat, (e.g., cold water immersion and sauna), which stimulates heat shock proteins and up-regulates many beneficial hormonal, neurotransmitter and other processes. It is important to have a Cinderella dose of these (and other) stressors to get the benefits without the harms. Before embarking on this lever in any zealous way, one should understand allostatic load and their own reactions to these particular hormetic stressors.
TERRAIN AND GEOLOCATION SPECIFICS:
While you might have good capacity to endure a hard workout in the gym, can you be resilient in a dynamic environment with uneven terrain, changing temperatures, and the potential dangers of flora and fauna while dealing with the necessity of carrying what will be needed, and still having the ability to extract yourself from the location without assistance? These are crucial factors for merely surviving in the wilderness for a short while, never mind the need to stay out there for extended periods and thrive. The next step is the ability to forage, make shelter and hunt.
Are you ready?
There are many more factors involved in cultivating environmental strength. I imagine some are thinking right now that they will never need these things. They live in a city. Well, first, you never know. Second, if any major technological infrastructure falls apart or there is major civil unrest, the city will be the worst place to be. Having the above capabilities will be a blessing in one’s capacity to survive.
Even without regarding a trial of nature survival skills, the above have great value, but also, environmental strength has a place inside the context of urban skills. Can you navigate in a city without technology? Can you foresee potential dangers, shortages, and other challenges? Do you have situational awareness?
Perhaps the most dangerous factor in our environment are other humans when they have hostile intents or you have things they rabidly desire.
Can you avoid being prey?
Do you signal weakness or strength?
Have you hypothesized what you would do in a variety of situations to mitigate harm and move to safety?
Adaptive Strength
This is truly an important strength for the current state of the world. It aligns with a broader sense of Darwinian fitness. Everything is always in flux. To stay healthy and strong, we must foster the capacity to be adaptive to new situations. We need to be able to be nimble and to pivot in effective and efficient ways. This requires self-honesty and clarity. We must recognize when our efforts are in vain, and a direction change is due. We must recognize that what once worked is not working. We must be forensic detectives of our own lives. More and more it seems the world is being swirled around in the winds of change. We will benefit from actions that are derived from early awareness of these changes before they land with the full consequences.
This type of strength is really an accumulation of all of the others. One can be more adaptive if one is physically strong and can handle unexpected exertion. One can be more adaptive if one is mentally strong and can tackle problems with logic and critical thinking in the midst of stress. One can be more adaptive if one is emotionally strong and does not get too dysregulated in the face of loss, stress, and fear. One can be more adaptive if one is socially strong and can build cooperative relationships, work as team, be a leader, and go against the herd when they act like lemmings. One can be more adaptive if one is environmentally strong and able to optimize their engagement within the location they are in.
Adaptability is a strength whether we are facing natural challenges or manmade ones.
Spiritual Strength
When the physical world is impenetrable to our efforts, when things happen to us, regardless of our strength, when we realize how little control we truly have, this is when spiritual strength is most essential. When we reach that far away horizon, where the great Mystery overshadows all of humanity‘s accomplishments and knowledge, it is there our spiritual fortitude might be the only thing keeping our head above water.
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.
Are there other strengths I haven’t touched upon?
What are they?
Disagree with mine? Why?