Introducing the Pyramid of Possibility
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.” - Sylvia Plath, Bell Jar
Introduction
I’m writing this article coming off of the tail end of a 6 year battle with injuries, debilitating chronic pain, and the continuous, costly effort of overcoming these injuries. I’m now in a position where I have regained some of my health and have been thinking about how to express the gift of health given back to me. My answer to that question is to make the absolute most of my personal capability and to give as many people as possible the ability to make the most of theirs. This article is my best effort to synthesize a concept that I call the pyramid of possibility; which is both result of my personal experience as a person in chronic pain and a person who has lived a bit on the other end of it doing radical things. It’s mainly a piece where I explore the logic of it. Maybe it’ll turn into a framework one day. For now, strap in fellow explorer.
What the heck is this pyramid of possibility?
Your level of health is based on what your body is capable of doing. On the farthest left axis, the less health you have, the fewer possibilities in life you have. We will call zero health as, you guessed it, death. Just shy of that is being bed-ridden. Beyond that is sitting upright with slight mobility. And so on from there. This progresses from left to right, which is the opposite. That is full health labeled as 100.
On the vertical axis is the varying possibilities of life that are only available to you if you achieve that level of health. Each possibility in life is shown as a negative possibility and as a positive possibility. This is both a path in life and a point that is demanding of a certain level of health. As you can see this takes any number of possibilities. Borrowing from Carl Paoli’s textbook Freestyle, a specific extension of possibility is “fitness for a purpose (kindle version, p. 99)”.
For the fully realized human, they will take on a number of different forms. Some of us may be long distance runners. Others become powerlifters. Others still could become polyglot assassins (assassins that speak many languages). The end result is the same - expansive possibility of expression through a body with choice. Now here's the kicker. If your health decreases, so does your possibilities in life. If your health increases, the number of potential futures that you have given the maximum expression of your body also increases. So -
More health = greater number of possibilities in your life both, present and future. The healthy person has nearly unlimited possibility.
Less health = less possibilities. The sickest person us have almost no possibility.
Now, possibility is a tricky thing. It's not a necessary route to take but rather an option that you give to a person or take away from the person if you decrease their health to some degree.
Within each sub-portion of the Pyramid of Possibility, there are different medical providers who specialize in the management of that specific level. For example:
At the bottom of the pyramid: Acute care physical therapists, ER physicians, surgeons and other people specialize in helping patients regain mobility and function after a serious illness or injury.
At the middle levels: Personal trainers and gym instructors can help individuals improve their fitness and overall health.
At the top levels: Sports medicine physicians and physical therapists work with athletes to optimize performance, prevent injuries, and facilitate recovery..
A well-functioning medical system should help as many people as possible progress from the left side of the Pyramid of possibility to the desired right level of the Pyramid of possibility. The society in which people exist and the laws that protect its people establish a baseline for normal health - which, in the US, is around 40% if I had to take a gander. That’s lower-middle level or so.
An example - my uncle, my dad, & I
Let me use a practical example. My uncle, being the 73-year-old retired uncle that he is, only has a few particular desires. He wishes to fish, spend time with his wife, and be able to get around to be able to live as long as he's so desires. So he would only need to be about 35% along the Pyramid of possibility because the possibilities and the ways that he wishes to express himself are limited. My dad is different. He likes to ski, do construction, and hike long distance. So his required range is 60%. Now compare this to the way that I wish to live my life. I want to become a fully functioning circus performance athlete. The requirements of being able to do that are fundamentally different than they would be for a person who desires to fish hunt and live their lives in a different way. So perhaps my desired level of health is 90% to 100% . Because of that I'm going to require different levels of care, a fundamentally different lifestyle, and different
How to use the pyramid of possibility for your own health
I think we know where intuitively are alongside the pyramid of possibility and where we would like to be. None of this is new, or surprising. What is new is that achieving health is actually about increasing your personal ability to do whatever it is that you dream of doing. Every investment you make in yourself and your health is actually an investment in a future that can be different from the one you’re currently living.
What’s tough is that each level of health requires different resources for different outcomes both that you are responsible for and your healthcare partners are responsible for. That’s a little vague, I but let me break down for a moment.
Before I go on, let me make a few assumptions.
First, I am assuming you are living in a safe place with ample enough resources to be able to take action for yourself without being hindered. This is not always the case in the United States and certainly not in many developing places. So if you need medical help, please get it (with respect to the fact that it’s not always easy to get this in USA thanks to our insurance system).
Personal Responsibility 1: To progress, you are required to be able to identify where you are without interpretation and what you need to do to be able to progress forward.
Unfortunately most of us don’t really know what we have to do to establish a basic level of health. What is my level of health? How do I know that I’m actually doing a good job at it vs. my perception of it? There is no perfect way to measure this. But functional screens usually do a pretty good job at keeping it in the everyday person’s job. So consider this suggestion a measuring stick of what you need to be able to do to be considered a functioning human being. Enter stage left the Starrett’s. Kelly and Juliet Starrett have done a good job outlining both the key activities and measures that normal people can do to establish a baseline of health in their book “Build to Move” with some straightforward functional principles (assuming there isn’t anything terribly wrong with you). I won’t copyright infringe too bad here, but what I like about this work is that they provide both a functional assessment of (a) where you are in a certain aspects of your health and (b) it clearly defines the personal behaviors that you need to execute if you want to improve this.
Ok, pause and allow me a confession: I tend to overcomplicate things. And if you made it this far, chances are you don’t mind a bit of theoretical chit chat. The risk in all of this is that if you stay in the safety of theory land you never get to the good stuff, which is the translation of the healthy dreams into a healthy reality through consistent action that actually makes a difference. Put differently, you -
have to decide what to do, how to do it, and do it until you progress along the pyramid
So analysis, a plan, simple action, and consistency. That is what you need to be able to do to go from point A to point B. This part is really hard because it requires a correct plan that can work but also takes into consideration where you are in your health journey. There is a myriad of information giving all sorts of conflicting points of view and differing conclusions. Making matters worse, each health topic has differing amount of disagreement - this is especially true for nutrition and exercise methodologies (cue Crossfit vs. Bodybuilding argument please).
The most obvious step to define where you are along the pyramid is to speak with a variety of experts around where you are vs. where you wish to be. Admittedly this still sounds vague but we’re getting there I promise. My personal approach based on how much I trust the physician. This trust is based largely based on how much they listen (approximately 80% of diagnostic information is in the interview) and how tactfully/often they push back when I propose my own pieces of research.
However, use your intuition here and start where it hurts most. Follow that negative compass and convert it into your starting point. That should get you in front of the person who can help you define your current level of health and, hopefully, help you start building a plan for how to get from point A to point B.
How to get the most out of your experts
Now you’re in front of a provider, a proposed expert in the area Physicians, especially those under the iron thumb of insurance, tend to be rushed and quick to 'easy’ solutions. This is the 2nd piece of personal responsibility you’ll have to be prepared for. The term here is self-advocacy, which is tough stuff, but the invested patient is the patient who will get the best work out of their physicians. Odds are your physician is tired, and has seen hundreds of people who aren’t as invested as you can be.
So, if you like this framework, here is what I do -
Before the visit: send your physician with an organized brain dump of what your goals of your current health status without reservation and where you’d like to be prior to the appointment (you can type it you could use AI to organize it if it’s too out there). A physician will oftentimes make assumptions about your health based on how you appear in front of them, rather than what you desire. You can subvert this by writing out where you think you are and what your dreams are. While the physician won’t know what it takes to make your dream of joining the circus come true, it will likely bring out better work from them vs. a patient who is only partially invested.
During the visit
Ask every physician what you should be reading, watching, or learning more about every time you see them. What they will likely recommend is something that can directly benefit you.
Ask every physician you see what the best action you (as the patient) can take in your day to day to resolve your current issue. Make them get tactical about their suggestions.
After the visit: take notes on what you just learned, what they said, and what opportunities it could present to you.
So prep, send over notes, ask lots of questions, and debrief with yourself consistently. Over time, this will build your personal (ahem) body of knowledge on your own health. Otherwise things get too confusing as you work with different people. If you aren’t getting the satisfying answers (with respect to personal resources), keep going until you do.
Personal Responsibility 2: You must be able to translate all of the complicated data points into simple actions that will make a noticeable impacts on your personal pyramid.
If you apply personal responsibility 1 well, you should end up with lots of information and suggestions from various people - most of whom I hope you can trust. They will have given you lots of resources to comb through, which will give you even more ideas to explore and apply in your life. The next step is to be able to convert all of this wonderful knowledge into actual things you can do to make your health better. This is harder than it sounds because all health practices have to fall (for the most part) within the confines of your day to day life. It’s pretty tough to get to bed at 9 PM and wake up at 6 AM if you work at night.
My current efforts are focused on transitioning from a person that has a upper-amateur baseline level of fitness to that of a professional performance athlete who wants to perform at a level in dance and circus. To do that, I have to be able to define what a top-level circus performer can do, think my way backwards from that, and then come up with a place to start. Point A to point B, then break it down to something manageable, like 6-months.
Your version of your health goals are probably different, as well as your resources. So your translation will also be different. For me, I have to be able to define where I am now vs. where I’d like to be health wise.
My goals are farther along the pyramid, so my actions are going to have more requirements to it than most. The New England Circus School has a series of entry requirements for a pro-track circus performer. To me, this is an reasonable assumption of something to shoot for over the course of the next year or so. And so after meeting with my physical therapist, my primary care, my surgeon, and such. I came up with a baseline training plan as follows:
To learn the basics of circustry: build a foundation in dance, circuitry, and return to baseline fitness. Activity: Live like an athlete and train as much as possible by continuously executing:
Dance via Steezy app daily and take in-person classes that seem cool
Complete Crossfit 4-5x per week with a goal is to change body comp and get down to 185 lbs (205 currently)
Lose weight via Whole 30 diet starting Monday 12/15. Reassess after the completion of it.
Get flexible by going to Anchorage Yoga 3x per week
Train Circuitry – Aerial view circuitry as much as possible
Notice how simple these actions are? That’s the goal, translation of information into daily actions you can take that will get you farther along the pyramid of your possibility. My risk according to my providers is going too hard too fast. So my plan will have to balance training with recovery supported by lots of good food.
Yours will look different, but a community is essential to be able to achieve them because all change requires work.
Personal Responsibility 3: Find the communities that believe in the same conclusions you’ve come to and spend as much time with them as possible. This will help you execute.
“The enemy is a very good teacher.” —the Dalai Lama
So we have a whole mess of information give to us by books, physicians, doctors, an everyone else who you trust under the sun. If you’ve applied the concepts, you’ll get an understanding of where you are at, you will have lots of resources to ingest and experiment with, and you’ll have a decent plan that will get you started towards a future that is is important to you.
Now it’s time for the journey Frodo, which is 25,000 times harder than the making of the plan. To that point, you’re going to need a companion - or, better yet - a whole community of people around you who can support you in your journey towards the future that you desire for yourself. Now, we can get all sciency here about tribes, what they do, how many people you need, and all of that, but instead let’s focus on a key point:
Most of us need to be supported while we’re doing difficult things or we will fail. Going it alone means a constant battle with your inner voice, which tends to not be the kindest companion when you’re trying to level up in anything.
Steven Pressfield would call this inner voice “Resistance” (link). It’s this idea that whenever we try to level up in anything that is of a true calling to our nature - and your future health is one of these things - we encounter all all of the negative forces that try to stop us from doing those things. Using an example from my own life, one time I desperately wanted to create a burlesque number for my friend leaving town in eight days. And I was unemployed at the time. So I had the time to do it. But resistance came out and told me I was too fat; that I couldn’t possibly learn how to dance (thanks youtube); that my pain would be too great and stop me from doing it; that my friends would laugh at me. All of the things that make you feel like a giant monster looms over you and has a choke hold on your heart.
The point is that when you try to take on this challenge of health all of the invisible monsters will emerge to try to make you fail from the thing that you set yourself out to. The bigger the change, the stronger the monsters will come out to play. If this isn’t resonating with you, NF’s song “Hope” perfectly captures the complex transition between different versions of yourself.
I won’t even begin to speculate at all of the personal work that needs to be done to overcome Resistance. But what I can tell you is that the communities you choose to surround yourself with directly have an impact on how well you sustain the effort. They do this by bringing joy to your efforts and by replacing the inner voice with encouragement and accountability. Community is probably best understood with a concept called the Dunbar number. This concept suggests that you can really only maintain meaningful contact with about 150 people at time.
What's great about this – besides that we don't really have to maintain a relationship with our Instagram followers – is that we can really focus on building our social circles with those 50 people. Now, consider a crossfit class. Now, consider a CrossFit class. These classes usually have about 10 to 15 people in them. If you attend these classes consistently, you will likely make friends with at least three to four of them.
Then all of a sudden, your friends will keep you accountable, encourage you, and the daily task of going to the gym every day isn't so daunting. So you, Frodo Baggins, get a little fellowship to help you carry your backpack - which we all need.
Unlimited Possibility, Concluded.
Getting to the end here, I think Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar” quote actually takes on a different meaning. She was trying to get at the point that we all need to make choices or the figs at the end of our branches will ultimately wither. I’d argue that we need to be focusing on growing the tree itself and then enjoy the fruits of our labor at the end of strong, well taken care of branches that can support our own ambitions and those who also need some of our fruits.
So thank you for spending your time reading my article. I know it was highly theoretical, but hopefully, it was actionable for you. If not, let me summarize. Your current level of health determines your capability to realize your possibilities in life. You get to decide what those are and how much health you wish to have. The difference between your current level of health and your dreams is the work you have to do. To do that, you need to get an honest analysis of your health from trusted partners and build a plan with them to get from A to B. Then begin your journey and build a community around you to support you as you go.
I can’t wait to see where you end up.
