A large part of my work is chronic disease prevention within a Native American community. What I have learned, both professionally and personally, is that many modern conveniences are a major driver of chronic disease. This is not a rejection of technology. It is a recognition of its cost.
Comfort, efficiency, and labor-saving tools often remove the very movements and stresses that kept human bodies resilient for thousands of years. In the process, we often throw the baby out with the bathwater. Traditional ways of knowing and older methods of living were not primitive. They were refined through lived experience, long before technology insulated us from consequence.
Working for a Native American tribe has given me the rare opportunity to see this firsthand. I see the struggle many Native people face as traditional lifeways collide with modern systems that reward convenience but quietly undermine health. I also recognize this struggle in my own family history. My father was a craftsman in the 1960s, deeply committed to making things by hand. He battled large corporations, mass production, and a culture that increasingly valued speed and profit over integrity and craft. Balancing those worlds is not easy.
There are certainly areas where technology is beneficial and even necessary. But labor-saving does not always mean health-saving. Often it means the opposite.
A simple example is wood processing. If you are cutting down massive trees all day, a chainsaw is the right tool. But if you are splitting your own firewood for home use, replacing physical work with a machine removes an important form of functional movement. Swinging an axe is not just about efficiency. It builds strength, coordination, timing, and endurance. When you outsource that work to a motor, you lose more than calories burned.
The same pattern shows up with footwear. Modern shoes are a form of technology. Highly cushioned, rigid, and expensive running shoes often weaken the feet rather than protect them. Minimal shoes or barefoot movement strengthens the foot, improves balance, and reconnects the body to the ground. Weak feet contribute to ankle, knee, hip, and even back problems. This is not theoretical. It is a biomechanical reality.
Back pain offers another clear example. Sitting for long periods weakens the glutes and the posterior chain. When those muscles atrophy, they stop doing their job. The body compensates elsewhere, and pain follows. This is not a mystery. It is the predictable outcome of removing movement from daily life.
All of this ties directly to an idea I once wrote about called the inner accountant. The body is efficient. If you do not use a muscle, it does not maintain it. That efficiency keeps us alive in harsh conditions, but it works against us in a world designed to minimize effort. When movement is optional, the body assumes it is unnecessary.
This is where indigenous ways of knowing matter. They are not nostalgic. They are practical systems that embed movement, effort, and skill into daily life. Tai chi, bushcraft, traditional food preparation, walking, carrying, lifting, and working with the hands all serve the same purpose. They keep the body honest.
The unifying idea is simple. Health is not created in the gym. It is created through daily interaction with the world. When technology removes that interaction, disease fills the gap.
The old ways were not anti-progress. They were pro-resilience. And in a time of chronic disease, they may be exactly what we need to remember.
From a chronic disease prevention perspective, tai chi and bushcraft address the same root problem: the gradual removal of meaningful movement from daily life. Conditions like diabetes, joint degeneration, chronic pain, and balance loss are not simply the result of poor choices; they are the predictable outcome of lives structured around comfort and efficiency. Tai chi restores coordination, balance, joint integrity, and nervous system regulation in a low-impact, accessible way. Bushcraft restores strength, load tolerance, and confidence through real, purposeful work. Together, they rebuild the physical capacities that modern life erodes—without requiring gyms, machines, or high-risk intensity. This is why these practices are not alternatives to public health efforts; they are foundational to them. They quietly reintroduce the kinds of movement, attention, and self-reliance that once prevented chronic disease before it needed to be treated.
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