2-WEEKS FREE TRIAL
This was the message from a local Dojo flyer I read outside a nondescript Japanese/Korean BBQ restaurant last night while contemplating their menu which featured a tantalising array of farm animal anatomy (tender beef liver sashimi, pork intestine soup, beef recticulum (?) special, sheep innards etc.). Karate promises to transform. It was very inspiring.
Is change possible? A lot of the time I hear people tell me that they are ‘too old’ to change. That, or it’s ‘too late’. I didn’t realise we had a transformation use-by date. If I had known I would have been spending my time more wisely. For all I know it might be ‘too late’. What are the zeitgebers that mark the end of change? Does it correlate with neural plasticity, therefore, early to mid-twenties? Is it signified by physiological change such as middle-age spread and erectile dysfunction? Or external markers, such as a mid-size sedan and a house in the suburbs?
Whatever the case may be, I didn’t feel too much like change last night. I had the bimbimbap. It was the first time I’ve had the tasty raw-egg and beef mince combo since contracting a nasty bout of salmonella from a similar lunch special two years ago. Taste aversions are one of the most robust forms of conditioning across many species. I went off mushrooms for four years after a greasy breakfast from Badde Manors. Although I still find myself there, eating strudel after a late night movie at Broadway. I guess the conditioning is quite specific, it doesn’t generalise to the context in which it is learnt.
Maybe we don’t lose our capacity to change. Maybe change just gets increasingly aversive.
So I’m committing myself to changing because nothing can be that bad for too long.
All I need now is a 12-steps plan.