Words Of +WIS | ShrinkGeek

Words of +WIS: Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless.

Aug 142009

Bruce Lee's statue, guarding Hong Kong

Before we get to the titular quote, we bring you this romantic Office Space interlude:

Peter Gibbons: I wanna take you out to dinner, and then I wanna go back to my apartment and watch Kung Fu. Do you ever watch Kung Fu?
Joanna: I love Kung Fu.
Peter Gibbons: Channel 39.
Joanna: Totally.
Peter Gibbons: You should come over and watch Kung Fu tonight.

Now, on with the show.

Take what is useful, reject what is useless.

– Bruce Lee (paraphrasing Jiddu Krishnamurti*)

Fitness, much like gaming or coding, is a process of learning and subsequently refining what you know. Early on, before we’re confident and comfortable, we’re apt to avoid getting in over our heads. Later, once we’ve got a feel for things, we begin looking to folks who’ve been there before, seeking guidance, advice, or, dare we say, +WIS.

Words of +WIS: “You’re the disease. I’m the cure.”

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Jul 152009

You’re the disease. I’m the cure.

- Marion Cobretti (Cobra, 1986)

I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had, during my time here. … Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we… are the cure.

- Agent Smith, The Matrix (1999)

It’s reassuring to know that such disparate theatrical toughs are looking to cure whatever it is that ails us, at least as a society. Well, half the time, anyways. Agent Smith seems to deviate just a tad from that whole “first, do no harm” dictat of the Hippocratic Oath, though.

In any case, what brought these particular Words of +WIS to mind today was new research that dovetails with the recent tendency to consider obesity as an actual disease, and treat it with cancer therapy techniques. In a nutshell, the chemical (branded “Zafgen,” which to this observer has potentially unfortunate echoes of “zaftig”) starves the body’s fat stores of blood, causing them to weaken and shrink.

Words of +WIS: Get Up, Stand Up

Words Of +WIS 2 Responses »

Jun 212009

no-standing

Get up, stand up.

- Bob Marley

Short and sweet. Of course, if you’re not into reggae, you can go with R.E.M.‘s exhortation to “stand in the place where you are,” or mimic some post-apocalyptic plague life and do The Stand.

Whatever mode of motivation you choose, try to make it a point to get up from your seat — whether it’s at your desk at the office, your computer at home, or the couch doing some console gaming or just watching TV — at least once an hour. There’s a semi-insidious bit of badness that comes from our seat-centric lifestyle: short and tight hip flexors.

Fortunately, the simple act of standing up and moving around a little will help keep them from getting too bound up, and nobody’s apt to look at you funny for doing this throughout the workday. If you need a subtle reminder, you can set your PDA or computer to pop up a note, or play a snippet of one of these songs, once an hour. To geek it up a bit and add a frission of randomness, you can roll 3d20 and do your standing at the sum of those three, so it’ll change a little bit every day.

This, however, might get you those weird looks we were talking about earlier. Continue reading »

Words of +WIS: All right, Brain, I don’t like you, and you don’t like me

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Jun 102009

Homer Simpson, (c) Fox Media

“All right, Brain, you don’t like me, and I don’t like you. But let’s just do this, and I can get back to killing you with beer.”

- Homer Simpson

There is an almost bottomless fount of wisdom to be found in the utterances of the bumbling, balding patriarch. However, this tidbit is more than a mere call for teamwork to help survive, a paean to the tasty deliciousness of a frosty beverage, and a completely useless mode of communication with an organ that doesn’t have a sense of hearing.

It might actually be supported by scientific evidence from several different directions.

Yep. Our brains, source of our motivation — whether it’s cognitive awareness of health issues, or something much less high-minded — are also putting up speed bumps and hurdles to slow down, if not outright sabotage, our efforts at healthier eating and exercise.

Words of +WIS – “Foot Massage is a Sensuous Thing.”

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Jun 092009

“But you’re saying a foot massage don’t mean nothing, and I’m saying it does. Now look, I’ve given a million ladies a million foot massages, and they all meant something. We act like they don’t, but they do, and that’s what’s so [bleeping] cool about them. There’s a sensuous thing going on where you don’t talk about it, but you know it, she knows it…”

- Vincent, Pulp Fiction (1994)

Man, it’s hard to picture Samuel L. Jackson (in the role of Jules) saying the word “nookie” with a straight face (as in “Nookie, M___F____, do you grok it?”), but if the man can pull off Snakes on a Plane, then I wouldn’t put it past him. In a study of more than two thousand twins conducted at Kings College (London), the twin who scored higher on an array of emotional aptitude questions was having, at least empirically, better (or at least more successful) sex. Apparently, one place where being a know-it-all, or at least intuitively clueful and attentive, comes in very handy is behind the Do Not Disturb sign.

Feel free to make your own “Strategy Guide” jokes here. They’re probably just as good as the ones I’ve had to delete because we run a PG (or at least PG-13) site around these parts.

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Words of +WIS: Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless.

Words of +WIS: “You’re the disease. I’m the cure.”

Words of +WIS: Get Up, Stand Up

Words of +WIS: All right, Brain, I don’t like you, and you don’t like me

Words of +WIS – “Foot Massage is a Sensuous Thing.”

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