Tuesday, January 6, 2015

The Monkey Inside

Charles 

Johnson





The Double Dipsea is a 15 mile race ran every year by disgustingly fit people to and from a beach just north of San Francisco.  Last Saturday I convinced my family to stop watching reruns of “The Office” and make an attempt at hiking it.  After three miles of uphill through redwood forest my three siblings (who talked nonstop about video games) and mother turned back, leaving just my father and me to complete the hike. 

This did not surprise me as my father and I are the two “death-march” (dad’s name for any walk longer than ten miles) enthusiasts in the family.  After lunching on parmesan cheese rice cakes and half a cliff bar we climbed the ridge of a brown foothill then descended again into a second damp, shady redwood forest. 

My father is in charge of marketing and sales for a software company so, naturally, he started talking about monkeys.  My dad’s point was that: “All humans are just monkeys who can reason logically.”  Apparently, planning ad campaigns with that assumption makes marketers very successful. 

Since my father is about 75 pounds overweight his feet started aching by mile ten.  His aches and our conversation brought a recent study to mind.  Apparently, the bones of an Orangutan are three times as dense as human bones today.  But, just a few generations back, human bones were strong like orangutans today.

I guess Roman soldiers who marched miles every day had nice dense bones from their rough lifestyle.  One of Caesar’s “forced marches” would make a family “death-march” seem like a picnic.  But hiking for a day and feeling sore feet really brings me back to the old orangutan-boned man.  I remember we once got along quite nicely on just our own two feet. 

3 comments:

  1. My first thought when I heard you talk about leaving The Office to go hike a race, was the episode in the office when Michael Scott convinces everyone to do a charity race for rabies. Their performance on that race probably made you and your dad look like orangutans!

    On a more serious note, I've actually had thoughts similar to yours. I think about a job at a desk I am likely to have in the future, and how it will compare to much of the agricultural work that earlier generations have done. I wonder how much of the decrease in bone strength is due to cultural differences rather than genetic differences.

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    1. Apparently, people today have built up their bone density to these levels. For example some Shao-Lin monks harden their bones through rigorous training. Even later in life one can strengthen their bones through weight training or just living an active lifestyle.

      I hope that people in the future choose to stimulate their bodies more.

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    2. Btw, thanks for the comment Sean. :-)

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