A Health Attractor Landscape
No one is healthy on accident
You will never win a war against your environment
I have said this for years, and it continues to be a central principle to build your life on.
There is a deeper layer of existence beyond habits, mindset, strategies, tactics.
That is WHERE you live, the people in that environment, and the transference effect that this environment has on you
You cannot separate yourself from your environment. Religious men and women who want to live for piety and prayer dont live in a busy downtown.
Monasteries, abbots, temples are away from cities. In some cases they sit at the edge of civilization and are closed off from the world.
Your environment, your landscape will direct your destiny
Recently I read an excellent article by Guru Anaerobic, who described this in the frame of an attractor landscape. Credit to him and please buy his book. This is my take on the model
The Attractor Landscape was a tool created in the field of physics but has since been used to help an understanding of many other disciplines; genetics, neuroscience, robotics, political alliances and other stuff which people think are important. I realised it’s a good model for how to change a life of domestication, obesity, ill-health, mental prisons, depression and unhappiness, i.e. zombiefication. It also shows why everything can change in an instant, either by your own volition or by a change in circumstances beyond your control.
~Guru Anaerobic~
An Attractor Landscape can be visually modeled like this
Source: http://si-new.jenal.org/attractors/
Think of your life as this landscape. At birth, you start as a point on a timeline, you are 0/0 on an X/Y chart.
Over the course of your life, your choices and innate environment begin to shape your destiny.
You go in a direction. Your ball rolls forward into tableau of peaks and valleys.
Gravity is always in effect. If you roll up a hill, you roll back down the other side. This isnt a bad thing. Maybe the next valley is an amazing one. Or maybe its not.
Over a lifetime, your adult life exists in one of these valleys.
That valley becomes your landscape. Your life is an attractor point. That point deepens over time.
The depth of the attractor is how reinforced your life is. Your choices have compounded. A deep valley forms over time.
The width of the attractor is how many things in your life keep you there. Friends, habits, location, identity, expectations. All of it pulls you into the same groove.
If your life is Salutogenic (Health promoting) your valley is bountiful and wonderful.
Your valley runs wide and deep. Maybe it creates steps to another one. You are in the the right place, you have overall made good choices.
This life is one of contentment, you are living well, you have a North Star with proper orientation.
If your life is Pathogenic (health negating), your valley is tiresome, obese, and you want to leave
You feel trapped by choices, by your body, by relationships, by habits. This where many people live today.
You want etter health. A better environment. A stronger body. More money. More agency. Whatever version of “better” you privately daydream about but publicly downplay.
But this takes effort. Immense effort. The Better life does not come easily.
This is the latent attractor.
The question of “How to Be Healthy” is a long conversation that ultimately arrives at journey of reaching that latent attractor over the hill, and in the future
If your life is unhealthy, you must change your landscape. You must roll up the hill and then back down again to a new valley. Everything you want is on the other side of the hill, or maybe its a mountain
This is Why I Advocate for Reverse Engineering the Life You Want
Imagine the future version of yourself and the state of your life. Visualize it in as much detail as possible, as if it guaranteed to happen.
How would that version act/think/operate/live TODAY in order for that future to become a reality?
If you know the life you want, the answers and actions are within you.
My Landscape Makes Me Healthy
I live on a few acres in the hill country of Texas. My life has always been guided on creating a world of vitalism and abundance.
This is simple in practice.
At night it is fully dark, no streetlights and essentially zero light pollution.
In my home and barn, I have only Incandescent lights.
I have an awesome home gym Ive put together.
I have my beloved Sauna
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I have meetups frequently at my house. I have great friends and we enjoy seeing each other.
Once you reach 35+ as a Man, either your life has been well lived and you can be proud of it
Or not.
There is not much in-between to argue about.
The bigger challenge of Life is staying adaptable
The world changes fast, can you stay ahead of it and not be dragged? Many successful men lose their edge as they get older, their reality paradigm becomes dated.
The Mental Landscape probably deserves its own article though.
Talk again soon,
AJAC
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Love the attractor model here. The valley metaphor captures something most self-help stuff misses, which is that willpower alone cant fight environemntal pull over time. I tried doing morning workouts while living next to a 24hr diner and yeah, that lasted about three weeks before I was back to pancakes. The bit about reverse-engineering is key tho, because most people try to escape their current valley without actualy mapping where they wanna end up, so they just roll back down.