Some months ago the headlines blared, “Sitting is the new smoking.”
In virtual lockstep, people began to parrot the proclamation. “Stop sitting.
It’s the new smoking.”
From behind the waterfall, I’m watching this spectacle unfold, as I laugh.
If you really believe sitting is synonymous with smoking, then prove it by:
a. Removing all desks and chairs from all schools.
b. Create sitting sections in restaurants and bars. Just as there used to be smoking sections,
how about sitting rooms?
c. Get rid of all the chairs people in authority sit in when passing laws, making judgments
or pontificating on the future of humankind.
d. Make a new law which states that sitting is akin to second-hand smoke and disallow people to sit at
any time wherein they “should” be moving their booty.
e. Begin creating stand-up automobiles, trains and planes.
f. Banish all lazee-boy recliners from planet Earth.
Now that you’ve seen my view of these matters from the realm of ridiculous ridiculing, you
may be prone to say, “But they didn’t mean it that way.”
Well, if you didn’t actually mean that sitting is the new smoking, then don’t write it
that way.
Sitting is one of the most valuable activities we will ever engage in – when we’re active.
We sit to eat, think, contemplate, meditate, mediate, communicate, exercise, read, write, sew, draw and
compose music. All of the above are active methods of sitting.
As for passive sitting in front of the boob and booty tube – well, I”m not a fan of that. Strange as it
may appear, I don’t watch television. I’m unplugged from the set and the controls that tend to throw
so many peoples’ lives into disarray.
The situation for too many sloths in society today is NOT that they sit – it’s that sitting is virtually
all they do – and most of it is passive. All day long you lose hours of your life watching other people show their
booty to you on the tube.
Tonight is Game Seven of Major Leauge Baseball’s Whirld Series.
Won’t I be watching this historic victory by the Cubs? Don’t I want to see their 108-year cycle of losing come to an
end?
No.
So I must be rooting for the Indians, then.
Neither. As a friend of mine said last year, “I hope they both lose.”
HA.
Truth is I’ll be tuned in to the game in a way that maximizes the use of my imagination. Instead of watching it play out
on the screen – I listen to the game over the radio as I go for a walk or engage in other forms of exercise. While doing
so I must engage and use my imagination in order to follow the action. To stay on top of the action, I must be able to picture what’s going on in the theater (or baseball diamond) of my mind.
I sincerely believe that television has caused a massive deterioration of the brain, worldwide. Why? Because you don’t
have to picture or imagine anything. It’s all done for you. And having everything done for you is playing a dangerous
game. It may be more comfortable or convenient – but overtime it leads to feelings of uselessness and helplessness.
I’m not asking you to follow my lead and give up television and replace it with exercise while listening to ball games on
the radio, but if you want to become a virtuoso in the realm of creative imagination, will power and action, it may be worth investigating.
Creatively,
Matt Furey
mattfurey.com
psycho-cybernetics.com
P.S. If you’re interested in audio downloads of Theater of the Mind and some of my other programs, go to
audible.com. You can also pick up a copy of Psycho-Cybernetics, Updated and Expanded at amazon.com
