Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

1 Thirsty. To want something very badly.

“He was thirsty for revenge.”

2 Sweaty. HT Brooks Barnes, Sunday NYT “Shop Talk”.

To be desperate for something. To want something so badly that the wanting becomes anxiety. A term from gaming culture which describes players who compete with a level of intensity that is so beyond the pale that their gaming controllers become covered in sweat. Trying too hard. The opposite of cool.

Not Sprezzatura.

3 Review. While lazing around at home, miserable weather, all chores completed. Beth: “Do you want to watch a movie?” And so we came to watch “Mr. Holmes”, a movie from 2015 now playing on Prime and the topic of this week’s report/review. Sherlock Holmes has retired. His memory is failing him, and he can’t bear to be even a little a lesser version on who he once was. He has retired to his bees in what appears to be a country estate in Dover. Assisted by a housekeeper and her 12ish year old son Roger, he obsesses over a quest to stall the loss of his still considerable. His search has brought him through Royal Jelly to an obscure Japanese plant called Prickly Ash.

Mr. Holmes is tortured by his final case. He cannot remember its final disposition, only that the version of the case written and published by his trusty companion John Watson is inaccurate. Encouraged by Roger who is eagerly reading each installment so painstakingly retrieved from Holmes’ memory, he creeps toward the true story. His final triumph not so much the outcome but the realization that his efforts to find a magic elixir that will restore his memories is but a dream destined to be unfulfilled (more in a moment). Still, we the audience see so much more as we watch his tortured efforts. I’ll not spoil your pleasure by revealing any more, but will only say that “Mr. Holmes” is worthy or your time.

And your tears.

4 Brain Health Part 3. My friend, the person to whom I have been writing this latest series on battling the scourges of aging, lost their mother last week. She succumbed to the most common variety of dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease. Like so many before, her family had long been mourning the loss of their matriarch. Emptied of her essence, her physical being was an increasingly empty vessel that once held within that which made her so special. Despite the months and years of “pre-mourning”, like so many of us my friend was nonetheless knocked off their feet by the loss.

And so I bring to them, and to you, Part 3 of my little series on brain health and the effort to bomb-proof yourself against dementia of all types. I should mention if I haven’t already that genetic tests exist to add a degree of quantification to one’s quest to stave off this terrible loss. For me knowing or not knowing will not really change my approach or my effort; knowing that my risk is X% higher would, for me, simply create a cloud over every hour I lived, putting at risk my ability to find the joy inherent in the fact that I was still alive and still me. You may feel otherwise, and will have to choose accordingly.

Thus far we have covered nutrition and sleep. Next up is exercise. Physical fitness. Conceptually this is actually probably the easiest of the four areas we will eventually cover. Get your buttocks off the bench and get in the game. Like to run? Run. Does lifting heavy stuff off the ground move you? Feel free to grunt all you want and drop your bumper plates with abandon. Pretty much everything in between probably works, too. Seriously, when it comes to brain health the data just doesn’t convince me that any one particular type of exercise is the magic prescription that will inoculate you against dementia. VO2 Max vs. Max Deadlift? Nobody knows if one is better than the other, but you and I both know that in one way or another you will be better off overall if you do some of both.

My CrossFit buddies of yore will argue in favor of CVFMHI, and the editors of Outside Magazine et al will argue for Triathalons and Ultras, with a tiny chorus of folks off to the side sitting on their stones and their loaded barbells and shaking their heads at all of the low BFI folks crowding the room. I think what you do is a distant second to that you do, indeed, do it. Make exercise the third leg of your lifestyle intervention stool. Everything I’ve read and seen and done tells me that exercise is powerful preventative medicine to ward off dementia.

Just as everything I’ve read and see and done confirms for me, as it did for Holmes, that no magic potion or pill exists that will do it for us.

5 Coda. I came across a bit of correspondence between a friend I’ve known for 35 years in which we remembered advice I offered almost all of those years ago. It got me to thinking and reminiscing about the 3 core guiding principles that helped me (and in many ways him) make it through our training and early professional careers. All 3 have stood the test of time, have continued to inform my best decisions both professional and personal, and over the 35 years now since I first said them out loud I’ve only needed to add one additional guideline.

“Knowledge is power.” One is at such a profound disadvantage if there is asymmetry in the amount of information they possess relative to those with whom they interact that at a certain point they cease to be independent entities. Without knowledge, awareness of the ground as Sun Tzu would say, you are at the mercy of another and must depend upon their kindness for, well, almost everything.

“Perception is more important than reality.” The explanation of this, of course, is that perception is the reality of perceiver. While you could say that this is simply an extension of the first guideline–creating the perception is in some way controlling the knowledge–I would simply say that one need only look at the deeply held worldview of some of the U.S. voting public, their perception of what is real and what is important, to illustrate that perception comes from within. Understanding this should inform your approach to any situation whatsoever. What does this individual perceive at this moment? That becomes the reality with which you will deal, your version notwithstanding.

“Evolution is better than revolution.” I first made this statement in a public forum on CrossFit.com, the home of a truly disruptive revolution in fitness. Here is where my conversation with my friend was so helpful, for he was (and still is) a man in a hurry to effect change for the better: evolution involves a conscious attempt to minimize unnecessary collateral damage. Sometimes that damage is directed at oneself, and thinking more along the lines of the “long game” is also sometimes a very reasonable approach to self-preservation. The fire of revolution burns brighter the nearer it gets to the revolutionary. My friend, nearly exactly my age, continues to seeks change in the cool contemplative glow somewhat removed from the fire, conscious always of the need to care for, and be careful for, the growing flock that has surrounded him as he grew older.

These 3 guidelines have served me well, lo these 35 years or so. They may or may not work for you; they may be nothing more than tinder to light the fire of your own guiding principles, or even less, simply the empty musings of an older man much too impressed with his own ideas. I have shared the epiphanies of 9/11 and Heinlein that underly the tactical application of these 3 strategies, and perhaps it is time for me to spend a moment or two reexamining them, as they may or may not apply today. But I believe that there remains plenty to think about in these simple suggestions. “Knowledge is power.” “Perception is more important than reality.” “Evolution is better than revolution.”

They have been a formidable foundation for the coda that guides me, still.

I’ll see you next week…

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