Exercise v. Damage

by phil on Tuesday Jan 6, 2004 4:41 PM
Idea Archive

When you get sick, you shouldn't mind it, nor should you seek to cut it short because the sickness makes you stronger, right?

"That which makes does not kill you only maks you stronger"

Is that true?

Any sort of resistance or pain that you experience can be interpreted as a strength-building exercise or as damage. Actually, exercise is just short-term damage in exchange for long-term recovery and then subsequent enhancement.

In my case, sometimes I'm tired and don't want to do my homework. However, sometimes I get a voice telling me that it's better to do it now when I'm tired, so that I'm stronger because of it. At the same time, I feel that I'm being overly ambitious and that I should just wait till I'm rested before getting to it.

Because in the short-run, doing my homework when I'm tired is annoying and contributes to my unhappiness. In the long-run, I am more accustomed to doing homework while tired.

I guess the same with sickness right? Erng, wrong, sorta. If I'm sick, and recover, then my body will be more accustomed for handling sickness. If I lengthen the time it takes to recover, then my body should be more accustomed for handling longer periods of sickness. Perhaps, but simultaneously, I would've damaged myself perhaps, making me more suspectible to sickness. To confuse things more, by shorting the sickness duration, you practice shortening sickness.

Like when raising kids, you don't want to completely shelter them from sickness because illness at an early age helps inspire the generation of the immune system. However, if they get so poorly ill when they're young, they could have permanent damage or it could discourage them emotionally.

Yeah, it's a bloody mixed bag, and it's hard to weigh these things out... there are positives from both sides of the situation. I guess the distinction is actually better as exercise v. destruction. You don't want destruction. But sometimes you do. "creative destruction."

I guess you have to do things on a case-by-case basis and see whether something is worth it. if it's too complicated, use your intuition.