Tag: #FOWC

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Courage is a Muscle

What doesn’t kill us make us stronger

–old adage sung recently by Kelly Clarkson
Wrestling kids from movie Fighting with my Family
Wrestling teenagers from Fighting with My Family, photo at Rolling Stone

There’s a temptation with sports movies to call them derivative, Rocky knock-offs, as if Rocky invented the concept of striving, training, working past obstacles, and succeeding. All good sports stories—and today’s blog is about two of them—reflect life, which is striving, working past obstacles, building courage, and succeeding. Then struggling again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The key element to well-made movies about athletics isn’t just about the success at the end, but about the development of character by the participants along the way. How they get there is really the story. Two films I recently watched, 2011’s Best Documentary Undefeated and the recently-released Fighting With My Family, both did an exceptional job of demonstrating how this works.

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Rewiring My Brain: Escucha y Repita

Despite five years of German and two years of French in middle school and high school, I retained none of it. I think I am not a “language person,” and I have often envied friends who seem to acquire languages like adding an extra car just because they can. Nevertheless, it’s been on my radar for years to learn Spanish. It is California; we are practically a bi-lingual state. I decided 2019 was the year to give it the full welly. I discovered ways to learn and not to learn, I started exercising parts of my brain that I didn’t know where there, and learned all about el hombre con seis dodos. Español, aquí voy!

Duolingo language app
The Duolingo free language app

How Not to Learn Spanish

This started three years ago when my daughter showed me the free Duolingo app, which purports to teach you a language five minutes a day. Since I enjoy a challenge, most of my focus has been to keep my streak going. (200 days in a row as of today). I have learned a decent amount of vocabulary, particularly about chicken with rice, fish burgers, and wine.

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Live Longer: Eat Cheese & Do Push-ups

Not necessarily, of course.

Like the rest of the human race, I am always in search of better health. I am an intrepid explorer of the findings of scientists, digging into the abstracts. What were the actual findings? Who was the study based on? How did they know? Was it correlation or just causation? It’s disappointing how often it turns out to be hogwash.

Today, it was the push-ups article in the NY Times. Last week, the cheese. I can’t tell, once I read enough to discover, Aha! I knew it! whether I should feel smug or irritated. Should I blame the scientists or the journalists? Or myself, for continuing to search for the easy fix and the fountain of youth? Could I solve it by combining them, say, to get push-up cheese?

Push-up cheese
Push-ups and cheese, Photo at PackagingNetwork.com

The Pattern

The pattern of scientific study recaps is fairly standard. Headline: Do This! Because a recent study says so. The photo is vaguely related, usually exaggerated. In a reputable paper, the digest of findings is somewhat specific, although it may blur some rather key details. If it’s not a reputable paper, the digest is plagiarized summarized from somebody else’s write-up, with most of the key details omitted or exaggerated. Sometimes, scientists are quoted trying to explain causality, though that’s really guesswork given the nature of studies which can’t control for variables enough to make that connection. Never mind! At the end, there’s a snappy quip, often a nonsequitur. If you read the online comments (but don’t!), people responding seem to completely miss the point. Perhaps it’s just as well. Continue reading “Live Longer: Eat Cheese & Do Push-ups”