Renormalisation

In the quest to rebuild some muscle, I trained on Sunday, paddled on Monday, trained again on Tuesday and then, of course, found myself pretty fatigued on Wednesday and Thursday. In what universe did I think I was 38 again and could train hard four or five days a week? Wednesday, I did a recovery walk, but Thursday, I took completely off any training, which brings me to Friday, and because the Hard Things project is still going so I looped back around to the Southwood program as my hard thing for the day. That’s my third time through the Southwood program and I’m not sure it gets any easier. So day 33 was the Southwood program and day 32 was my usual evening stretching without the succor of watching some drivel on Netflix to stave off the boredom. Day 32 was more uncomfortable than day 33.

I was listening to a podcast recently (trigger warning: Joe Rogan) where the guest talked about renormalisation. The theory was explained thus: one person in the family becomes a vegan (for arguments sake, the daughter). Mum or Dad, whoever does the cooking, has three choices, (1) make the usual omnivorous meal and have the daughter throw a fit; (2) make two meals – one for the omnivores and one for the daughter; or (3) make a vegan meal and inflict the vegan meal (inflict is used deliberately as there has never been a successful human culture that followed a vegan diet because such diets are inevitably nutritionally deficient unless supplemented) on the rest of the family. Inevitably, choice three prevails, and the intolerant minority now rules over the more tolerant majority (the omnivores will eat anything).

Haven’t we all been there. Tiptoeing around social discourse because one person (perhaps two at most) in the group is the president and CEO of the Intolerant Tolerant Society. The folks who believe themselves to be the tolerant champions of any and all minorities but who are, perversely incredibly intolerant of anyone with a different opinion. These social situations are literally like trying to walk across hot coals.  Keep in mind I am socially inept. 

Apparently, renormalisation is actually based on physics and mathematics which are hard sciences and I find them much easier to believe than social and medical sciences which are soft, woolly, comforting to some perhaps, but ultimately not able to answer specific questions with any degree of vigour.  Read more about renormalisation here. It’s pretty fascinating.