Jeet Kune Do and the Art of Health Defense
Jeet Kune Do is the martial art Bruce Lee invented. What is Total
Health Defense? That's what I invented. The idea is to use the
techniques martial artists use for defense in a fight, use them to
defend your health. We usually consider our health as something we
have to go do at the gym, or go get at the GNC store. Or a diet
program or a lifestyle. All of that is great for your health but none
of that IS your health.
Try this experiment. Ask someone, "What is the definition of health"?
They'll say something like eating good, exercise regularly, keep
proper weight. That's not health. Those are maintenance techniques.
Before you can defend your health you have to define it. We are lead
to believe if I'm being unhealthy that's supposed to mean I don't have
any health and if I go join the gym that means I'm going to go get me
some. I don't have any, then I do, then I don't, then I do?
Now you're thinking ohh it's the Lifestyle thing! That's the ticket.
If I go get some of that then I'll have health. You will but
"lifestyle" is not heath, it's just a excellent maintenance technique.
The best one of them all. You could go around saying, "I'm going to
defend my lifestyle." That's good, and it works, but nobody ever says
that. They should. All this talk of semantics, but it's important to
understand why health never had a definition until recent history. All
this good maintenance stuff comes and goes, people turn it on and off.
Well we're going to cut through politics and economics and get in
front of it all. Health. The better you know it the better you can
defend it.
You never hear someone say I'm going to the Mall today I have to
defend my health. Because isn't it true you are being attacked by road
signs with food pictures, commercials on the car radio, ads on the
cell phone, the menu's at the Food Court, and your stomach is saying
we need that and your brain is saying let's get some of that. Your
wallet says come on everybody let's party. You're being attacked every
day in every way. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, all the info
brokers, all the marketers, they all know. They Lobby. You are the
only one who doesn't know your under attack. That's the last thing
they want you to know. They lobby millions+ to obfuscate you from
knowing. It's not hard to mitigate all this in one fell swoop if you
understand what health is. Does anybody understand the healthcare
system? No. The war on drugs is over. It's now the war on health.
Billions are at stakes. Trillions actually.
How is any Kung Fu going to help me? It's only a small group of people
out there who want to do martial arts Kung Fu Karate MMA fighting. For
most of the rest of us we don't have time for that. We should make
time but we don't and we won't. What is it you are fighting for?
Remember when Mick Jagger said that at Altamont, "Who's fighting and
what for"? Ask people that. The guy who has 8 guns and knows 3 martial
arts. They'll say I'll fight for my property, my house, my wallet, my
car, my wife, my life, my honor. My honor? What year is this, You're
fighting for your health. Of course honor and respect is important but
doesn't it amaze you guys will go to prison for many decades because
someone bruised their honor? Who has time for that? We have important
stuff to do here.
People used to die for their honor because health wasn't invented
until recently. Now that it's here we shall defend it. I'm being
factious, of course you're going to defend your house, your spouse,
the car and your wallet we don't need to even talk about that.
Defending your health means all that and so much more. Your health is
your existence. Your life? Defend it? Your life is simply on or off.
We don't need to talk about saving your life. Don't change the subject
we have important stuff to do here.
WHAT EXACTLY IS YOUR HEALTH
In this age of double lifespan longevity and profit by disinformation
and deception it's become very important. We are being attacked daily
without even realizing it. Jeet Kune Do seems particularly well suited
for the task of Health Defense.
"Jeet Kune Do" means Way of Intercepting. Bruce Lee developed that. He
mainly used it to intercept your fist but it works in other areas just
as well. He used it to intercept his opponents mind. You can use it to
intercept your own Self. Instead of Self-Defense it's HEALTH DEFENSE.
As one example, a lot of what and why we eat is from emotional
illusional cultural bias conditioning. If you "intercept" that you can
get in front of it. Imagine how how many other things you can
intercept. Get in front of everything. From your core. What is your
core?
Your Core is Time. Life is Made of Time.
You ever notice how young people value time as almost worthless and
old people are the exact opposite. To them time is everything. Worth
more than money and gold. Speaking of historical longevity where
people rarely ever lived long, truly understanding Health is a
relatively new invention. It was not something that was understood
very well even in the "modern" 1960's and 70's. All this bravo for the
"new" counterculture ok fine but what were we doing the previous
30,000 years? Everything Bruce Lee is circa 1973. He was in the 1960's
very first wave of modern health awareness. How could this be? Because
in all of history nobody, mostly, used to live long enough to worry
about all the health issues we have today.
You don't have a problem if you never live to see it. If special
interests keep you from seeing things does it still exist? Fossil
fuels have no future so oil the industry is going all in on plastic.
Plastic is now taking over the mantle from fossil fuels as our
worstest, biggest, problem. You're not supposed to worry about all
that jazz. The history of the food chain? Who cares. The Food Chain
reflects great humanity progress but also huge problems. In the 1960's
if you worried about this thing known as "your health" you were
considered a "Health Nut" a kooky person. Health was fake, a liberal
hippie plot, against our liberty, our Constitutional Rights, our very
freedoms at stake. Freedom to buy meat and a XXL Soda. How's that
workin' for ya today?
What is health? We are told and sold that it is some sort of balance
or optimization of a state of physical, mental and social well-being.
In other words it is whatever the current generation says it is.
Hippocrates the famous physician is considered the “Father of
Medicine." He is credited with being the first person to believe that
diseases were caused naturally, not because of superstition, evil
spirits and demonic possession. We're taught history as though "okay
we got that" solved. Yeah Hippocrates did but the general public never
got the memo.
Health has changed more in the last 50 years than in the past 5,000
years. For the public it pretty much didn’t even exist before 1900.
Nobody had known the relationship between germs and disease. Food,
drugs and medicine were all the same thing. Nobody knew what was
really going on until well after 1900. Even then it was only doctors
not you and me. Superstition is still alive and well today in 2022.
We’ll get to the actual history of what health is from the NCBI-NIH.
Before we do that let’s touch upon The Art of Health Defense using
Jeet Kune Do. I created Total Health Defense as my personal form of
health based on my research and findings. It can be taught but not
standardized because each individual has different needs. The
definition of Health is slippery because it’s a moving target. It’s a
living definition. I’m not trying to define it I’m trying to defend
it. It’s up to you to define your own health. That's pure Jeet Kune Do
right there. Bruce Lee felt that way about marital arts.
What is Total Health Defense? It is a combination of health and
security. Typically security is not considered as health. Nobody
thinks of using a gun to help your diet plan. Martial Arts are thought
of as healthy but not useful for that perfect Risotto recipe (I think
it has something to do with the Basil). Anyhow,... this is a
disconnect. What does security, guns, war or cyber security have to do
with your health or your Risotto? Why is it disconnected? I think
Bruce Lee was trying to tell us. Evel Knievel said your body is like a
Car engine, if you put nitro-like substances into your body after
awhile it will blow up, just like the engine.
Here's Evel Knievel himself explaining one of the best health
algorithms ever described. This is the second movie so it's really him
not an actor-
YOUR BODY IS A ENGINE - EVEL KNIEVEL
In the story of humankind we like to think that "health" was always
here from the beginning and only just now bad stuff is happening to
us. This is mental comfort food for one dimensional thinking. It's
actually the opposite. A hundred+ years ago if you woke up in the
morning that meant you were healthy. If you made it to Friday you were
successful. That sounds crazy but there was no way to tell otherwise.
A long time ago it didn't matter and nobody could tell anyways. Once
philosophy began turning into science we were able to fix cognitive
health because nobody knew it existed. The discovery of (the field of)
cognitive science is barely 40 years old.
There has been some really smart stuff that's been known for a
thousand+ years. Each generation it seems that only a very small group
of people were paying attention or had access to it. The majority of
folks were trapped by society in one dimension and held hostage by the
narrative of the day. A narrative built on missing information,
misinformation, fear of change, superficial conformity, financial
slavery, superstition, and occasionally a bit of wisdom and sometimes
a dash of common sense. There was no baseline for verification of
authentication of information. Education is a relatively new concept.
In 1975 only 67% of the workforce had a high school diploma. Truth is
not going away it's just now arriving. It's pouring down on us like
rain. Truth is like science, it's always around but it's not official
until it's no longer a theory.
It goes to core of your thinking to get a peripheral vision to see
outside the common narrative of the day. Bruce Lee was able to see
outside the narrative. In his day people did not connect the dots when
it came to health or self. We can see today the fight over the public
narrative.
For all of eons pre-1900 health seemed to consist of finding out why
spirits, ghosts, and very basic things like the doctor not washing his
hands, made everyone drop dead so quickly. Was that health or just
unknown common sense? Today's common sense was yesteryear's miracles.
Before 1900 Food Drugs Medicine were all one and the same. The FDA was
invented in 1925 or whatever it was, the FDA was invented to keep you
alive! It had nothing to do with your health.
Remember those medicine shows with all the magic potions elixirs. It
was the era of Carny Health where you put cocaine in everything and
call it a miracle cure. This was probably fun at first but things
quickly got out of hand with some of those potions and elixirs
containing mercury, arsenic, Lord knows what. The magic Cure-All might
kill you. The FDA was invented to keep you alive only waay later on
after WWII did it become about your actual health. In 1920 there was
no such thing as “health” if you woke up in the morning you were
healthy. If you made it to Friday you were successful. In Life.
Unhealthy meant you were half dead about to kick it. Very simple
system.
I think "health" started officially in 1948 with the definition
proposed by the World Health Organization. The WHO defines health as
“a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, not
merely the absence of infirmity or disease." This was considered
revolutionary thinking. It's a great start but I think it's a One Size
Fits All that doesn't Fit All. Humans have been re-writing history to
cover this up.
In 1959 René Dubos defined good health as the condition best suited
for each individual to reach his or her personal and social goals. In
1968 well-known sociologist Abraham Maslow said that health is based
on, in order: physical needs; then safety; then love and belonging;
esteem; and lastly self-actualization. He's getting there but
obviously he never got cyber attacked. Safety (security) is always
first. My algorithm (definition of health) is, in order: Security;
Health; Finance. Without security there is no point in building
anything. Finance may bump up to No.1 if it's killing security. Health
may bump up to No.1 if it's preventing Finance. When all is good in
the proper order it is: Security; Health; Finance.
Unfortunately during the definition of health the NCBI-NIH page
stopped talking about the definition of health and switched over to
the definition of the Health Care System. This is the problem we have
today. They switched the subject and left the individual out of it. We
will never get healthcare right unless people realize they have to
participate in their own health. Well, how come we don't say this?
When President Barak Obama passed his "ACA" affordable care act, on
the podium he never said anything about how people should (need to)
participate in their own health. It's because his opponents view this
as tyranny. This is why it's better to not mention any "products"
because then nobody can give you this tyranny rant. It's not about
products anyway when you go to the root of the issue.
This is why Jeet Kune Do is so refreshing and why I use it to do
Health Defense. It goes to the core of your health, ahead of all the
fog. Bruce Lee took his martial art to the core, ahead of all the
style-form debates, direct point A to point B. He was a master
reductionist. That is what Health Defense is about. It's not about
defining your health it's about defending it. You have to define your
own health. Consequently the better you can define it the better you
can defend it. A problem well stated is half solved.
The field of Health Psychology began in the early 1970's and it was
about the psychology of being in the medical system. In 1969,
Psychologist William Schofield prepared a report entitled, "The Role
of Psychology in the Delivery of Health Services." Research of the
time frequently regarded mental health and physical health as
separate. His idea was to have psychology help patients and staff
manage health-related behaviors. My idea was, and is, to have
psychology help you at home. Help you manage your health-related
behaviors long before you ever become a patient in the system.
Psychology is a young science starting in the 19th century. Before
that exploring your mind was all in the realm of philosophy.
Scientists Wilhelm Wundt and William James are generally credited for
being first in making psychology a science different from philosophy.
They viewed psychology as the study of conscious experience with a
goal of identifying how the components of consciousness combine to
create our conscious experience. This was right around the time we
were putting Cocaine and Heroin in just about everything and there was
no clear differentiation between food, drugs, and medicine. It was
also the ending of the days when most people never went past age 30.
It was live fast die young, hope I don’t die before I get old talkin’
bout my generation. If you only live to be 30 why study or care about
health? By 1880 or 1900 we were barely getting started on our journey
to double and even triple our life expectancy here in 2022. Nobody
used to know “health” was a thing or that it should be. We’re only
just now figuring it out for the most part. Right around the time the
WHO came up with one of the first official definitions of health in
1948 we were inventing Twinkies, Wonder Bread, cheap bologna, dubious
hot dogs, corn syrup, etc. it was processed EVERYTHING. After the WWll
the idea was feed as many people as possible. That was a good thing,
at first. Soon it switched to all about money and the economy. Nobody
realized this was setting us up for failure. Our medical system isn't
made for age going past 60. Our mental health is not ready either
because you aren't going to die. Just linger in bad shape for some
extra decades. Today many ills only hit you at old age, so you need to
be healthy live long enough, to get sick. I would say today if you
made it past 80 I think you won. No matter what happens.
It wasn’t until the 1960’s that pesky thing known as health showed the
first signs of disrupting commerce as usual. Nobody paid attention
though. Doctors were doing cigarette commercials, you could smoke on
Airplanes, in the Pentagon. John Wayne is smoking in a B17 Bomber and
he's the Pilot! Health was a hippy fad in 1969 when Psychologist
William Schofield started his version of Health Psychology. Today now
that life expectancy is double and triple it looks incredibly dumb the
stuff we used to do. Don't even bring up Reefer Madness, seat belts,
or lead paint chips.
In 1979 when I went through Army Boot Camp I noticed the vast
differences of behavior as we all wanted a beer, we all wanted junk
food, drugs, whiskey, cigarettes, whatever crap it was you had been
growing up with. I thought gee I want a beer too but it makes no sense
to freak out in front an Army Drill Sergeant. Bad idea. You're not
going to get what you want and the pain will rain, down upon you so
why would you do that? After I started learning about psychology it
started to make some sense.
On the long flight to my first station in Germany I read the book by
Will Durant called, "The Story Of Philosophy." It's an excellent book
that covers all the greats in a friendly Readers Digest format. That's
when I started connecting Health to philosophy and psychology. I
created my own version of "Health Psychology" to mean the study of why
you do the nasty things you do. To this day I never consider it having
anything to do with the medical system or the hospital staff. If
you're in there -it's too late. I consider Health Psychology as the
study of how health defense and offense work together. Use defense as
an offense move. Jeet Kune Do. Keep yourself out of that system. To do
that I invented geospatial health psychology.
In the 1980's I had no idea the medical system in the USA would become
the No.1 world leader in FOR-Profit medical treatment. Fee For
Service. It's become so bad that kids today need to avoid drugs and
bad things not for their health, but for their finance. You simply
can't afford to go into that "Health Care" system. If they cured you
but made you bankrupt they didn't really cure you. Politicians will
tell you everything's fine nothing to see here move along go back to
work.
“It's like a market arms race between the plans, the hospitals and physicians for dominant position in the contract negotiations. One thing everyone agrees on, Policy Director Michael Miller said: Consumers are getting caught in the crossfire and there needs to be a stop to it. Consumers are sort of the innocent bystanders in this battle.” Consumers are lost in the fog of war. This is the war on health.
THE WAR ON DRUGS IS OVER IT'S NOW THE WAR ON HEALTH
I would say until now war was never about health. The way we know
Health is a really new invention. The history of Health is shorter
than a mosquito leg and the history of weapons is longer than history
itself. Health is the political wing of warfare. It's always been -if
you made it to Friday you were healthy. That's called luck. Health got
serious only in the past 100 years. What's different about food, drugs
and medicine? Tap the brakes because the war on drugs is over. This is
the war on health. Fodder and slaughter are being phased out.
When the NRA says use a gun for self defense they’re not talking about
your cholesterol or boosting your heart muscles. In the totality,
every day of your life is just another day at the office in the war on
health. It is ultimately about saving, guarding and defending your
health.
Your health is a conflict. Why is it disconnected? Partly because much
of what is happening to us in body and mind is on auto-pilot. We are
unaware of it yet it controls our awareness. Not exactly directly it’s
all convoluted and fluid. And thats exactly why we’re not aware, it
would drive you crazy knowing (worrying) about all that. Some
scientists say be careful about those gnome readings of your DNA. You
may have the genes for some cancer and then never get that cancer.
Conversely you may get a cancer you never had the genes for. How much
do we want to know?
We seem to have a societal fear of discovering exactly how our body
works. Lest we find out we are not the person we think we are? That’s
called, “Childhood” isn’t it? So what happens when you discover you’re
not like the person you think you are? Cognitive dissonance?
Cognitive dissonance always seems to have negative connotations. I
just read a definition that said, “conflicting values, feelings,
beliefs, or behaviors.” To me when I see my values, feelings, beliefs,
and behaviors conflicting, it’s time to switch gears. Make something
new happen. If you’re always afraid of “new” then you’re going to have
a lot of cognitive dissonance, I would think. Mobility has a large
part to do with this. This is why I call it, “geospatial health
psychology.” If you have no physical and mental mobility then you’re
trapped in dissonance.
Apparently a psychologist named Leon Festinger, who was especially
interested in researching cults, coined the term “cognitive
dissonance.” He saw how cult members reacted when the hokey pokey
predictions never came true. Some just bail out others won’t let go,
they do “mental gymnastics” don’t you love that term, they spend
considerable energy into convincing themselves into justification.
Isn’t that a typical rock band? Hey I’m an artist way into surrealism
I do serious mental gymnastics every other day. I’m not making fun of
people who have serious problems I’m making fun of people who don’t.
The experts go onto to say, ask, how do you know whether you've
experienced cognitive dissonance? Okay here's the list:
• Telling yourself that you'll start something new every day,
in spite of historically failing to do so.
• Doing all kinds of really bad stuff while also believing that
this shit is bad for you, plug in any potentially unhealthy habit
here.
• Believing that someone is a very close friend and also
feeling like you can't trust them with personal information.
• Eating meat or wearing leather clothes while believing you're
a committed animal lover, or committing to vegetarianism but not
veganism in spite of citing reasons that justify both.
• Both wanting and fearing some big change in life.
Number 2 there doesn't sound like dissonance. You do bad shit, you
know you do bad shit, you do bad shit anyways. Sounds like everyone is
on board where's the conflict?
That list describes half the country. It especially describes the
business world. It perfectly describes bloody brilliant CEO’s like
Steve Jobs with his famous, “reality distortion field.” That list
describes the world of corporate capitalism. You’re not supposed to
lie to your self but what happens when it works out great? Sounds to
me like cognitive dissonance has the possibility to work out really
well if you operate it correctly. It also sounds like a total
nightmare if it doesn’t.
In the creative world when you snoop around in a neighboring field you
don’t know, you may hit the jackpot because you didn’t know what rules
not to break. If you don’t have good self awareness you might be too
afraid to try anything new. You’re too busy just hanging on. Some
people take advantage of not knowing any better. You know those crazy
ones who somehow keep scoring.
I think you should understand who, the person you think you are,
really is. If you don’t then you can hurt yourself. You go against
your own self health interest. I learned this from riding motorcycles.
Dirt bikes will try to kill you. I had a 2-stroke Kawasaki KX 250. It
was 6 years old but it was brand new still in the crate. The
motorcycle shop in Maryland was going all street bikes and they didn’t
want it. I said gimme that thing, put that puppy together. They
assembled it and I remember going out to the garage just to stare at
it. A thing of beauty she was. I thought it was the greatest day of my
life. It was moto-mania for about 8 years. Loud and fast, but she
tried to kill me. More than once. I never pressed charges. I finally
sold the bike and thought, “well I got that out of my system.” I
digress.
The rehab industry started embracing the "Whole Systems Approach."
That means integrating with the persons family, friends, employer,
everything in their life. Let's go to a total systems type approach.
Engineer data scientist John Boik talks about looking at society in,
“The Systems Approach." He describes it as a “big picture” view: a
look at how the components of a system interact with each other to
achieve an overall result, rather than simply optimizing each
component.” That sounds like something Bruce Lee would say.
Think of that "bigger picture" as full of algorithms. These are little
formulas, little recipes, equations, that do things. We all create
them and we use them every day. When I get a good algorithm I like to
think I created it. Perhaps it's just that I uncovered a way to
describe something that was always there. Either way these algorithms
can save the day. Here's my algorithm I invented relating to our life
long conceptual continuity: Illusion, Delusion, Diversion. It's a
little cycle that's always going.
Algorithms are typically seen as digital computer related. Algorithms
don't have to be just digital. In fact organic algorithms are far more
powerful. Look at nature, all that crazy stuff is organic algorithms.
The natural organic algorithms we are looking for are the cognitive
communication lines so we can do some "interception" and interruption.
The cognitive circuitry signals your body uses to connect to your
mind. Once you become aware of this "circuitry" you can start
intercepting the signals, manually yourself, instead of using
medicinals or doing counterproductive self medicating. Think of your
body as if its a Car Engine. If you put the wrong fuel or oil in it
too many times it will blowup. Once you realize where your body's fuel
lines, spark plugs, your biological wiring harness, circuit boards,
cooling lines, etc. you will see things in a whole new light from that
point on. Think of the odometer, don't put too many miles on your
Liver. You wear out your Heart it's hard to get the replacement parts.
For your body it's like looking under the hood. It's like looking at a
cognitive map-diagram of your system. Follow the instructions on the
Owners manual.
Here is a diagram of my Cognitive Loop using financial terms. Your
human system is mostly automated without you thinking about it. It's
like you're taking in $100 dollars but you only get to see 5 bux. It's
okay you don't need or want to see everything. This is normal until
it's not normal. The economy does not want you to know about this. It
wants you to blindly ingest as much as possible.
Life is about where to put your priorities and nothing else matters. Which priorities? Selfish priorities? Family priorities? Company priorities? Societies priorities? Religious priorities? Who owns your priorities? You are supposed to so what happens when something else does? Total Health Defense is all of that all at once. Mike Tyson told me, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Bruce Lee told me, “Your greatest enemy is the element of surprise. To defeat that enemy don’t be surprised.” Offense or defense what should I do?
From a Total Health Defense perspective I would say that there are
things in life you can not control. And there are things in life you
can control. It only makes sense to carefully nurture the things you
can control and do not blindly feed the things out of your control.
That only seems obvious if you can tell the difference. If you
understand then you don’t need the logic but you need the logic to
understand. What should we do? We all have at least some "cognitive
dissonance" how do we know what it is?
Shannon Lee has a new book out about her father. She said, "just about
everyone on planet earth knows Bruce Lee as a Kung Fu fighter but not
everyone knows he was also a philosopher and a deep thinker." That has
to be the understatement of the year. She wanted to get that out and
share his words of wisdom. When I first learned Jeet Kune Do 40 years
ago it didn't take long for me to see the philosophy. Black Belt
magazine used to say, "Martial Arts is 80% mental 20% physical." I
never saw it. All the typical Karate Dojo's like at the strip Mall had
no philosophy or words of wisdom for me. Commercially Chinese Kung Fu
was unknown in the United States.
In 1980 I was a 20 year old Private in the Army overseas. A Sarge from
Seattle taught us this strange thing called, "Jeet Kune Do." Coming
back home there were no JKD Instructors in those days. I was broke
anyhow so I focused on the philosophy. I started using it to "Defend
My Health." I used to call it American Health Defense. I changed the
name for the cyber age to Total Health Defense. Traditionally health
is looked at as something you have to go get and try to keep. How
about seeing it in a different light.
What Do You Want in Life, Power? or Predictability?
Decoding
Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do
One of the main tenets of Jeet Kune Do is, "the art of fighting
without fighting." That means intercept your opponent before a fight
can get going. This involves psychology. Stopping the fight before it
gets started does not make a good Hollywood movie but for Total Health
Defense it means you win. Since 1973 hand to hand self defense hasn't
changed too much. But defending your health has.
Bruce did not look at Jeet Kune Do as a style of martial arts, the
arts were simply a container for his philosophies of self expression
and actualization. He wanted us to use that vehicle for our self
expression and actualization. He closed his schools and planned to
express his philosophies in movie plots. One of Bruce's main
algorithms is fully express yourself by not "limiting" yourself.
Physically this is very challenging but what about psychologically?
What is it that you have to "defend" every day? Your health. But of
course. In the 1960's the concept of health wasn't a Thing yet. Bruce
was a pioneer just for bringing it up. But comparing "health defense"
in his day to today is like comparing a WWll soldier to a modern day
Navy SEAL. Fortunately the very core of Jeet Kune Do is its concept of
adaptability. Unfortunately the attraction is to be Bruce Lee, copy
him. He built Jeet Kune Do to be adapted not copied. He said be
yourself not someone else. He specifically said don't try to be him.
Why did he say that?
He was trying to get us to not underestimate how being the best of our
own ability is incredible. He's saying be How I did it, not How I'm
doing it. This is not easy to see. If Muhammad Ali told us, "You don't
want to be the greatest you want to be the best of your ability" we
would be like, uh no, I want to be the greatest, just like you.
Doesn't everyone want to win the lottery as some sort of shortcut when
we know the real answer? Bruce wants us to see how to see the real
answer. "Be your own light" is his quote from Jiddu Krisnamurti the
great Indian philosopher. His teachings influenced Jeet Kune Do
philosophy. Krishnamurti talks about a different kind of learning.
Copying things to add to your arsenal is a important type of learning,
it’s imperative. There is another type of learning where copying is
not learning. Copying is static, mechanical, cumulative. This
different type of learning is proactively being passive. It sounds
counter-intuitive. When you become adaptive you don't worry about
learning, you only worry about adapting.
I fear not the man who has practiced
10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick
10,000 times.
- Bruce Lee
What would a digital Jeet Kune Do look like?
It would adapt accordingly. Bruce Lee specifically said don't be him.
Salvador Dali said, "Have no fear of perfection—you’ll never reach
it." That means everything is a matter of balance and not black and
white, on or off, hot or cold. Be flexible.
As we decode the Tao of Jeet Kune Do I can see hints of something new
that was only just beginning to develop. Algorithms. I'm saying Health
would not be just more or better information about nutrients,
lifestyle, workouts, diets and the Food Chain. That's traditional and
that's a mess.
Introduction:
Your Health Self Interest and JKD
Jeet Kune Do translates to "Intercepting Fist." In the TV Show
Longstreet, the episode where character Duke Paige raises his arms
Bruce was on him subduing any attempt of movement and says, "I
intercepted your emotional tenseness." Intercepted your emotional
state, your mind, your thoughts. That's a powerful algorithm. It was a
fight by not fighting and there was no fight. That's the main tenet of
Jeet Kune Do philosophy. What if you did that with your your health
psychology? Your Health Self Interest. Intercept it.
Jeet Kune Do literally means "intercepting" your opponents fist. I
never heard Bruce talk about intercepting himself. It appears he
considered intercepting as offense? He words things differently when
he talks about working on your inner self, like ways to work on your
inner defense. He never talks about defending it by interception. My
idea is take this very aggressive offense and use it on your Self, as
"health defense." The word health was not used that way in those days,
the word health was barely used at all in those days. You defend your
life and your honor, to defend your health was unheard of. Healthcare
the way we know today wasn't invented yet.
I love his concept of emotional interception of your opponent so
doesn't it makes sense to intercept your own emotions? Today we call
this emotional intelligence. The more you know about your self the
better you can defend your self. Recognizing emotions and
understanding the causes and consequences of those emotions helps your
defense. It helps to label emotions with precise words so you can
regulate and express them better. When Bruce Lee says it's hard to
honestly express yourself it's an interesting turn of phrase.
Generally we're pretty busy with this task of expressing ourselves in
any best way we can, worrying about if it's honest is not the first
concern. I guess that's exactly his point.
Working on your emotional intelligence is not something you do on
Thursdays at 3 p.m. It’s about infusing the concept into everything
that happens. This psychology has been around since Sun Tzu so it's
seems strange that today it's controversial. I guess that's not new
either, meditation techniques, mind body control, martial arts,
Buddhist eastern practices, have all come under fire from the West for
centuries. I consider Jeet Kune Do in front of all that hooplah, its
ahead of everything, it's direct, the core of your defense, life or
death, no time or room for politics at that stage. It's a very small
window.
Change happens slowly right up until it happens quickly. When
everything is calm and relaxing, life is good, and there are no real
problems—no one really thinks about emotional intelligence. But when
you are threatened people start taking emotional intelligence
seriously. Everything is activated. Everyone is easily triggered and
people are worrying about their safety and their future. One of the
strategies for this is to just know about it. A problem well stated is
half solved.
Cognitive activity is related to a form of signals that travel through
the air towards you and into your body as electrical psychological
message (signals) traveling at various speeds on series of cable-like
pathways through an organic analog network. So to speak. You need to
"intercept" that message. Intercept these signals.
Depending on the type, the neural impulse travels at speed ranging
from 2 miles per hour to, super fast 200+ miles per hour. But even
this speed is 3 million times slower than the speed of electricity
through a wire.
The psychological messages can travel through the air, once they
become physical, like if you touch something the impulse travels
through the nerve network to the brain at a rate of 350 feet per
second. Some kinds of pain signals travel slowly. If you stub your
toe, you feel the pressure right away because touch signals travel at
250 feet per second. But you won't feel the pain for another two or
three seconds, because pain signals generally travel only two feet per
second.
Before the 1960's nobody took health seriously. It was just another
side issue, if you made it to Friday you were healthy. Socio economic
political cultural religious agendas have hijacked our health. Now we
are trying to figure out all the things that wreck our health.
Health Literacy is not taught in school. How do you know what to do?
You can't do everything but you can do everything you can do. You
choose certain choices and sometimes certain choices choose you. Your
body is just like a motor. You wouldn't put the wrong type of fuel in
your Car, so why would you do that to your body?
Evel Knievel is right when he says your body is an engine. How can you
talk about driving when you have no idea when the oil was changed, why
the transmission makes noises, the brakes squeak, pistons are knocking
but all you want to do is complain about your driving experience. This
is what doctors deal with every day. Some guy comes in complaining
about heartburn but all he eats is garbage food yet he can't figure it
out. You can't have it both ways. The doctor gives you statin drugs to
"transition." They're not supposed to be your new normal so you can
continue going down the wrong road. That's what Evel Knievel said
about using Nitro in engine fuel.
Your mind is a similar dynamic. Why wouldn't it be? If you have no
idea how to listen to (more importantly NOT listen to) your body, well
then of course you're going to be lost. It's a form of cognitive
dissonance. The grifter trolls out there know the "cure" for this is
only listen to what you want to be told. And sold. You get fleeced all
the while voting against your own self interest. The natural tendency
is to make everything all about you.
Cognitive
Science
How can we manage our health defense when our mind hides from us how
it works? It's silly to not listen to the little bit you get. We live
only in the top thin layer. All the other layers are on auto-pilot.
The mind is guiding us, steering things, telling us when to want, when
to pay attention, but you don't see everything. Information is sorted
out for us on the lower layers. How much do you know about your self?
Sometimes your spouse or partner can see something in you before you
do. Facebook, Google, Amazon, YouTube, they can see things in you
before you do because they bother to track it. Then they sell it. You
get nothing. You are a product. Social media uses "behavior engineers"
that feed you. To keep you in "engagement." You could track your every
move and predict your own behaviors the same way they do. It's just
not practical. You can skip all that hassle if you just learn how to
look at your self. This is very difficult to do all by yourself. If
you didn't know you won't know it.
Walking around town life seems so fully formed. Every day is so new
it's difficult to see most of life is spent wondering what just
happened. Who has time to track all that? They do. And they do and
they don't tell you. Worse yet they don't give us a cut of the action.
I joined Facebook way back in the beginning. Right away I complained
they weren't giving me royalties even though I had a fake name and
fake information. Jaron Lanier says we should quit all social media
and hide under the couch. I think we've past that opportunity. For
example Facebook is all over you even if you never touched the
program. We just have to be more aware of the way things are now. This
is a new battlefield where the military and the civilians are becoming
the same target.
Your
worst enemy is the element of surprise. To defeat that enemy don't
be surprised.
- Bruce Lee
Health
Is The New Wealth
How do we use Jeet Kune Do ten years from now? 40 years from now? If
you had to pick one -POWER or PREDICTABILITY, which would you choose?
Hollywood would have you picking Power every time. Fighting Action
Fighting Action. That's what everybody wants. Power sounds good but
it's not predictable. With predictability you get power, for free,
it's like two for one. It's like intercepting. Predictability is about
the path you're on. Power is about Obstacles. Power leads to always
wanting (needing) more. A better pursuit is to seek predictability,
for then life is no longer about obstacles, it's all about which
"paths" to take. Life is about paths. In everyday life it's not a
clear cut choice. Always use power, but only after you first tried to
use predictability. Predictability is a form of interception. Fight
without fighting. All the references you see about intercepting are
about the opponent, his technique or his intent. What if you focus on
"intercepting" your self? That's what I call Total Health Defense.
Table of Contents
Introduction
You Can't Do Everything But You Can Do Everything You Can
Chapter
One
KNOW WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW
Chapter
Two
THE WAR ON HEALTH PICK YOUR POISONS
Chapter
Three
KNOW THY FIVE KEY HEALTH DEFENSE SYSTEMS
Chapter
Four
HOW TO BUILD YOUR OWN ALGORITHMS
Chapter
Five
POWER OR PREDICTABILITY
Chapter
Six
THE CHICKEN OR THE EGG
Chapter
SEVEN
HOW TO TALK TO YOUR SELF
Chapter
Eight
HOW TO MAKE LUCK AND SEE IN THE DARK
Chapter
Nine
THE HISTORY OF DEATH
Chapter
Ten
GEOSPATIAL HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY
Addendum
Episode
I
HACK THE HUMAN, BEHAVIOR GENETICS FATE
Episode
II
YOU ARE WHERE YOU ARE
Episode
III
ALL YOU KNOW IS WHAT YOU KNOW
Episode
IV
NATURAL VS ARTIFICIAL -THINKING
Episode
V
BIOFEEDBACK DATA VISUALIZATION PREDICTIVE LINK ANALYSIS
Episode
VI
GEOSPATIAL COGNITIVE CRYPTO CURRENCY
Episode
VII
EVERYTHING IS EASY, IF YOU KNOW WHO TO ASK
Episode
VII
JEET KUNE DO 40 YEARS FROM NOW
