Page 24 - Ruminations

22. Buoyancy and the crutch

Given that we are bipedally locomoting animals, anything altering
the dynamics of optimal walking, standing or sitting is potentially
corrosive. As well as mistaken ideas of posture and exercise,
maladaptation includes chairs, shoes and conveyances. They may be
culturally mandated or medically recommended, but their function
often reduces to a vicious-circle, self-defeating crutch.
Both balance and minimal energy expenditure require constant
realignment and weight distribution around our bilateral barycenter,
the local zenith line approximating the best axis of an upright spine.
With regard to the mutual attraction of our bodies and the planet, our
goal should be to remain buoyant; that is, exploiting or respecting
gravity as a constant while adjusting through time with our head, torso
and jointed limbs.
Using buoyancy heuristically for this purpose evokes our origins in
the sea. Gravity does not affect marine creatures as it does the
terrestrial, allowing a wild divergence of types able to make their way
in the water without much need for balance. Quadrupedal land
creatures have relatively little difficulty standing up, almost from birth;
but our further evolution greatly increased that necessity. We must, in
essence, float on dry land, adjusting to tides both externally imposed
upon us and internally initiated. That is accomplished by treating the
body as two sets of springs linked at the lumbosacral joint, one below
an imagined ocean surface and one above.
The lower spring consists of the feet, legs and pelvis; the upper, the
vertebrae above the sacrum. By keeping the lower spring in dynamic
homeostatic play around the axis of the zenith and below the center of
gravity, one is, in essence, always falling down and getting up via small
adjustments of toned muscles and flexible joints; it thus becomes
more difficult to fall over—the nemesis of the elderly and
osteoporotic. The upper spring reacts to the placement of what is
below, compensating for it while contributing to the motion of arms
and head.
This restates a valuable ancient teaching. Rejecting it leads to
reliance on internal and external crutches; treating one’s skeleton as a
statically-balanced armature is as unhealthy as overusing inventions
first to avoid standing and walking naturally, then to avoid carrying
ourselves entirely. Earth is an exercise machine, available to all.