Or you could do some boxing for Boxing Day?

My dad, upon observing the cycle my mom went through over Christmas of shopping, wrapping, shipping, opening, and then, inevitably, after Christmas, returning things that didn’t fit or suit, once threatened to skip the whole thing and just shop with my mom during the after-Christmas sales.  He didn’t follow through in the interest of family harmony:  there are some traditions it is better not to mess with.

Now that we are, however, in the after-Christmas sale portion of the year, it is worth asking ourselves, metaphorically, what we wished we had received at Christmas that we didn’t and to make plans to give ourselves those gifts.  Maybe we really wanted just ten minutes of peace and quiet.  Maybe we wished for more energy to chase the kids around on their bikes or at the park or through the living room when they swiped the last cookie.  Maybe we would have liked that sweater better if the smaller size had fit.

In the lull after the holiday blitz, we have time to plan.  We have a moment to think about what matters and to strategize about how to get more of that stuff into our lives.

Give yourself that ten minutes, or maybe even a whole yoga-class worth of peace and quiet.  Get out there and move your body to increase your energy.  Bump up the weights to change your body fat percentage and improve your metabolism so the next time you get a sweater, it fits.

Most of that stuff doesn’t even cost money.  Bargains galore!

Monday Workout: Christmas Escape Plan!

Sure, it’s Christmas.  But there will probably be some time during the day when you’ve had enough eggnog/presents/relatives and you can steal a little time for yourself.  One way to do that is to sneak in a workout.  Or you can save it for after the holiday is over.  Either way, four rounds.  Our focus is on balance and stability this week.

1 min cardio
1 arm clean and press	20
ball bench press	20
ball slam	20
bent over row	20
1 leg deadlift	20
brains	10

Friday Book Report: Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling, Volume I

Well, I finished Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling, Volume I by Susanne K. Langer.  Perhaps the most useful thing I can say about it is that I do not feel the need to read Volume II.

I’m not trying to be unfairly critical.  Much of the writing is downright lyrical:

“The image of life as motivated activity reflects an aspect of animate nature that has baffled philosophers ever since physics rose to its supreme place among the sciences, because inanimate nature—by far the greatest concern of physics—has no such aspect:  the telic phenomenon, the functional relation of needs and satisfactions, ends and their attainment, effort and success or failure.  There are no failures among the stars.  Rocks have no interests.  The oceans roar for nothing.  But earthworms eat that they may live, and draw themselves into the earth to escape robins, and seek other worms to mate and procreate.  They need not know why they eat, contract or mate.  Their acts are telic without being purposive” (p. 220).

Similarly, much of the material is interesting.  Langer gives a lucid and convincing explanation of why the exclusion of the subjective from the laboratory hobbles psychological research, among other things, and leads to various untenable positions, most dualistic in nature.  Her perceptions about art go deep and promote thought.

And yet.  It’s a long book.  It hasn’t aged well in some areas where the intervening decades of research have provided more data.  There are times when it seems that Langer’s goal is to include every possible piece of supporting data, even if the first one or two are truly convincing.

And the kicker:  after 444 pages, she feels she has just succeeded in setting the stage to discuss the emergence of human mind out of animal nature.  Sigh.