For me, swimming is a reflective process. I always look back at the event and recall how enjoyable it all was, but I never look forward to getting up early and dragging myself to the Pool. This in some ways is a pity, as I do enjoy the swim.
I tend to average 150+ lengths a week, and a fair few Sauna's to boot. Popping into the Sauna is my way of adding some relaxation and further extending the workout period. The heat maintains the raised heartbeat from the exercise; well that's my theory anyway. Plus of course there's the Social Intercourse. Like many people, I enjoy a good chat, and popping to the Pool enables me to exchange a few words with some friends. Routine, motivation, dialogue, exercise, warmth, and reflection.
It's all very civilized. Elias mentioned that we are unable to understand the "civilizing of conduct" and the transformation of the structure of mental and emotional life without "tracing the process of state-formation" within the advancing centralization of society. Elias also mentioned that this "first found (...) visible expression in the absolutist form of rule." So our development links to those 'power chances' that were gifted to a central authority. Now we can trace this state formation back to the middle ages, and enforce our understanding of later events, by reviewing 15C records. But in many ways this 'central authority' mechanism operated throughout the 20C and is still visible today. This is evidence that the civilizing process is a continuum. What one person thinks is civilized is not, and what many believe to be civilized; is still subject to improvement as gradual changes are introduced. By inference, this latter model cannot be 'civilized' because if it were, then there could be no room for improvement. Better still, our understanding of the process is based on ‘reflection’ in that we have to look for evidence in order to determine if improvements or advances were made. I wonder what future historians will think of the current turmoil in Arab countries. Will they believe that UN intervention was correct? Will they regenerate the Crusader against Islam theory? Or will it all boil down to a mere side show. It is quite upsetting that conflict through choice, has displaced the Humanitarian disaster in Japan from the front pages. But this is all too often the case, a side show steps in and prevents us from executing our intention or necessary actions.
The problems always seem to happen through a craving for power. For these persons the money sector of the economy is all too often the driving influence, and this craving allows the actors to seize their ‘power chances’. Be it 'oil', 'Land', or other wealth; the names of the actors never matter. Yes they will be noted in history, but in real terms the names don't matter as the sequence seems to happen time and time again. Sometimes it all ends with a fight between ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’, conflict or force exercised by those that consider themselves to be ‘Civilized’ against those, who for no good reason, they consider to be ‘un-civilized’. I'm not saying that what we are doing in Libya is wrong, only that I truly believe that dialogue and negotiation is better than conflict. Mind you, that requires both parties to be listening, and all too often that is not the case. Then again, even when people appear to be listening and agreeing, we have to remember the farce that was the Munich Agreement.
I don't know much about what I have written, but I do know that in this 'civilized' (sic) era, it’s awfully civilized being able to pop along to the Swimming Pool most mornings.
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