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Contributor: “Dr. J”
Dr. J offers his irreverent, slightly irrelevant, but possibly useful opinions on health and fitness. A Florida surgeon and fitness freak with a black belt in karate, he runs 50 miles a week and flies a Cherokee Arrow 200.

Metaphysical problems

I’ve been noticing a metaphysical trend lately in the world of health and fitness. What I mean by this is that people have gotten very metaphysically philosophical in their attempt to reach a place of being healthy and fit.

During the last semester of my senior year in college, because I had already been accepted to begin my medical studies, and, well, I was a senior after all, I decided to reward myself and signed up to take my first and only philosophy course, Metaphysical Problems!

Philosophy was that strange unknown area that beckoned to me like the Sirens’ song to Ulysses. On that first day, sitting at my desk, I could feel the ropes beginning to surround me, getting tighter as I more fully understood what trial I had undertaken. The professor teaching the class reminded me of the Penguin in the Batman tales, as he strode up and down the isles, pontificating and, I kid you not, smoking a cigar!

I managed to receive a “pass” for the class, as one of the smarter things I did was to take the course with only a pass/fail option. Up to that time I had received an “A” on every paper I had written in college, but for this class, my paper “Evolutionary Determinates of Human Morality,” was gruffly handed back to me with a “C” grade and a note indicating my professor’s total disagreement with my original concept.

Interestingly enough, years later that idea was accepted by more philosophical minds as one valid theory of the formation of human morality. Not in time for me to improve my grade, but pleasantly in time for me to email the university’s philosophy department with my observations of “things one remembers from college.”

My other interesting memory of that class is, even when it was over, I had absolutely no idea what metaphysical meant! That understanding was to come years later, thanks to the serendipitous discovery of the book, Non-being and Something-ness, Selections from the Comic Strip Inside Woody Allen, with an introduction by R. Buckminster Fuller. I finally understood, as described in the introduction:

The Einstein school of scientists declare: “All that is physical is energy, and all physical energy can move instrument pointers.” Therefore it follows that any and all the experiences that do not move instrument pointers are metaphysical.

Metaphysics seemed so much more understandable now. Perhaps it was the cigar smoke that had clouded my awareness?

Metaphysics in health and fitness

Metaphysical thinkers frequently talk about their health and fitness issues, reasons for failure and what they will be doing to change all that with means that are more in the realm of the metaphysical such as motivational sayings, positive visualizations, mental imagery, letting go of their barriers to weight loss and reading books that claim to be able to heal their problems.

It’s not that they are not dealing with metaphysical problems. The problem is that they are looking for metaphysical solutions. For example, you have heard the phrase, “Laughter is the best medicine.” It isn’t “Humor is the best medicine.” Humor is a metaphysical concept, laughter is an active physical behavior, and that’s where solutions lie.

Perhaps metaphysics is just a primary stage on the way to being successful, but I worry that it isn’t, because I often do not see people progressing beyond this point.

Solutions begin with a physical change. They must be based on the concept of action, and as long as the solution remains metaphysical, it will never solve anything.

Metaphysics is a fascinating area of philosophy, but until we translate it into the area of the physical, it will not give us the results we want. It is just one more way to be stuck, and one more excuse to fail. It is a seductive trap, because it fools you into thinking you are making progress.

I think it’s time to get out of the metaphysical and get into the physical! Start expanding your activity level with real physical movement, not metaphysical concepts.

I suggest an exploration of Physical Philosophy: I move, therefore I am!

Don’t try to figure it out. Just do it!

(Send your questions for Dr. J to calorielab@gmail.com or leave a comment. If your question is used by Dr. J, CalorieLab will send you a $25 Dining Dough restaurant certificate — limited to U.S. residents. More Dr. J posts can be read in our archives.)

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 and is filed under Dr. J will see you now, Exercise and fitness, Motivation and mental. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. Permalink.