Thomas Erickson
July 2023
For the first fifty years of my life I cultivated my mind.
I was raised to believe that learning was the path to having a good life. Learn to read. Do well in school. Develop social skills. Get into a good college. Find a profession where your interests and abilities overlap. Be curious; seek out new things; keep learning. And, as a consequence, advance along the career path: develop more expertise, accrue experiences, develop your work portfolio, expand your network of contacts. My body had little to do with any of this. Well, that’s not true. It is more accurate to say that it played a supporting role: possibly important, but by no means in the spotlight. I didn’t pay much attention to it. Yet I was not a sedentary person: I biked, to school and then later to work. I practiced a martial art. I hiked and backpacked and body-surfed. I kept a garden. And so on. Much of what I did for fun involved physical activity. But still, I took my body for granted.
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