Squirrels

Categories: Uncategorized Jun 25, 2014

Have you ever run over a squirrel with your car? I almost ran over one this morning; about seven times. Those little guys are just squirrelly. They are so erratic, spastic, and indecisive when they find themselves in the middle of the road. Yet, when they are in my back yard, they appear to know what they are doing. It seems to be quite natural for a squirrel to be in a tree. In a tree, squirrels know how to be squirrels. It does not seem natural for a squirrel to be in the middle of the road, however. They freak out and actually form into little fury tornados of indecision and stress. Squirrels do not belong in the road. They are simply "out of place" when they are in the road.

People are a lot like squirrels. In our natural environment, our outside physical world, we seem to know how to act like people. We know how to take walks, ride bikes, play frisbee, and explore our surroundings. We are quite active when we are out in the world, and we move much more, as we were designed to move. However, when we are not in our natural environment, we tend to get squirrelly; not physically, but mentally.

When people occupy chairs in front of computers, or when people isolate themselves to things like media and social media, instead of real, genuine social interaction, people get squirrelly. Some of us forget how to move and others of us forget to move. Some of us lose social inhibitions and hide behind the veil of the internet. Others of us start condemning the different views and opinions of others by stroking out words of judgement on our keyboards. Then, there are others who "freak out" by all the events in the news and all the doom that is happening around them. Stress levels go up, anxiety goes up, courtesy goes down, and compassion disappears.

We are becoming something we were not intended to be. We are like squirrels in the middle of the road. We don't belong behind screens. We don't belong in closets. We were never meant to be the brain that interprets the information that floods the screens of devices. We are not meant to live in isolation of thought and false experience. We were actually meant to be the bodies that experience the natural world around us and that share the genuineness of real social interaction.

It is the body and the experiences of the body that develop the brain. Movement and interaction with others actually nourishes our brains. Being sedentary and isolated deteriorates our brains, and makes us turn into stressful tornadoes of anxiety, indecision, over inflated opinions. Hiding behind unnatural things like screens and trading real interactions for false ones makes our brains go squirrelly.

We have no business living life behind the internet, or in chairs. We have created the Matrix and we have left our natural environment. We were made to be in the world, to move around in it, to create and cultivate relationships in it. We are wonders of movement, thought, and interaction. We are wonders. At least we are meant to be wonders.

I write this for myself as much for anyone else. I often find myself choosing to text rather than having a real conversation. Or I might chose to email on purpose to hide behind the indistinguishable wall of voice inflection and tone. But enough about me! We should take more walks. We should meet friends for coffee. We should take walks with friends on our way to the coffee shop. We should live and experience the world and relationships around us. We were not created for isolation so the world could spin on as though we were never here. Live. Don't be a squirrel in the road.


Daily Anti Squirrel-In-the-Road Regimen

Take a 10 minute walk every morning.
Perform 20 cross-crawls every 2 hours at work.
Take a 10 minutes walk at lunch.
Have a meaningful face to face conversation with a friend, or your spouse, or both.
Take a 20 minute walk after dinner with your family.

Limit yourself to 20 minutes of social media per day. That's probably way too much!

In case the thought has crossed your mind, this has everything to do with health and vitality. This is about living life!

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