Ravages of age?

Hopefully not. Yesterday I went through the annual wrestling match with my loader, getting it back on the tractor. I left the snowplow on until then in order to prevent it from snowing, successfully. According to the manual, attaching the loader is easy, but they are of course lying.

Anyway, the project involves a lot of heavy lifting and today, I am as stiff and sore as I used to be after the first day of wrestling practice. My problem is that I'm trying to hold down a desk job, with a long commute attached, while being a farmer and a lumberjack on the weekend. The human body is meant to be in one mode or the other, I think.

The 21st Century has achieved a milestone. The majority of humans now live in cities. I just supervised an MPH thesis by an immigrant from west Africa who did a health needs assessment of the African immigrant community in her city. It included a survey. It shouldn't surprise you that most of her respondents said that it was harder to get exercise here than it was in the old country, where exercising was just part of everyday life. Now they have to go out of your way, and probably spend money, in order to be physically active.

There is a lot about city life that I miss, but let's face it. City life ain't natural. It's astonishing how adaptable we humans are, but maybe we need to find a way to live in the post-industrial age that's more like what we're built for.