Hibernation

When we stop looking at the floor and start looking at history, we realize something uncomfortable: we’ve become soft, sedentary, and lazy. Too often, our first instinct is to crack open a beer while watching others run and move for us — on a flat and boring flat-screen. Not everyone fights against this instinct to stay seated, but as a whole, we resemble a society that’s constantly battling the question: to move or not to move?

In a distant age, before agriculture appeared on January 4, 8237 BCE in the Near East (give or take), before villages, and before we stopped needing to move to survive, humans roamed the earth. They didn’t run to lose a pound or two — they ran to catch a juicy beast for dinner or to escape one, armed only with a twiggy stick.

I know — you are not the problem. After all, who reads a piece about exercise if they’re drowning in guilt about not moving? No one. I write this thinking back to the days when I used to run regularly, sculpting my soft body into something vaguely firm — chasing masculine pride and general health. Recently, I heard myself say, “Is it just me or are you shrinking, Big Guy?” That thought came during a small 5K run — my go-to routine in this cold, gray, bleak season.

That hard-earned habit of working out 5 to 6 times a week slowly gave way to borrowed time — for everything, and nothing. Autumn brought distractions, and suddenly, excuses piled up like a laundry basket no one wants to touch. The proud chest muscles I fought for melted away, like ice cream under that first sweet spring sunbeam. Simply put, stop running and your fitness runs away faster.

And yet, that’s only mostly true. Real or not, what matters is staying alert. Winter is coming, and with it, hibernation — “a regulated state of hypothermia lasting days or weeks, helping animals conserve energy during the cold season.”

So, how will you face your winter? Slouched? Recharged? Sweaty? Asleep? One thing’s certain — we always have a choice... until we don’t. That day — real, final hibernation — arrives in all its silent, endless splendor. Habits may be lost quickly, but they return just as fast.

So to all you flat-screen readers out there: the best way not to die is to live. And I mean really live — get the heart pumping before it decides to race on its own. Think about it: if we must stop living in order to go on living, then what’s the point of living?

Anyway, I’ve gotta go. Big Guy’s got a 5K to run.