I've been reading about exercise, and its contributions to healthy brain functions. The more you exercise, the better your metabolism, the healthier your body becomes, and the better your brain functions. What if it were the other way around though... what if the act of using our brain burned calories and made us physically healthier in addition to mentally healthier. You could thumb through People Magazine, and it would be the equivalent of 10 minutes on the stair-climber. You could bury yourself in an Eco and it would equate to a weeks worth of heavy weight training. Study philosophy, math, science, art... you've set yourself up for a lifetime of physical fitness. People would avoid Business degrees, because it's sort of like walking really slowly on a treadmill once a month. Psychiatrists would be our personal trainers... oh you want to increase your speed? I'm going to prescribe you this textbook on Paranoid Schizophrenia. I understand, you want to have more dexterity. Why don't you peruse this Roget's? Oh, you desire to increase your flexibility? Have you read any Buddhist Philosophy? You don't think you're graceful enough, huh? Have you tried Machiavelli's The Prince? Stop though around chapter four, because that grace may become much too oily. Impotence huh? Well, many of my colleagues would recommend The Kama Sutra, but I prefer to start my patients off with Song of Solomon, let me know in a week how that's working. We'd all carry library cards; it would be free health care. The Library of Congress would be walled with mirrors. Book-rats would stroll around with towels draped around their necks, sipping their Gingko and Phenylaline smoothies, discussing how many reps of Jung, Hawking, or Tolstoy they just finished. Newer members would walk around nervously, looking for an empty bench, clutching their Crichton or Rowling to their underdeveloped chests. If this were the case, in high school, everyone would be participating in the Challenge Bowl or joining Debate Club... more people would play chess. Traditional team sports would be unpopular for the unhealthiness of them. ... or perhaps, things would remain as they are now, because humans are inherently lazy. "Learn stuff?, no thanks, I'd much rather be enjoying myself and getting fatter." Hmmm, the more I think about it, how did we actually even survive this far? If our ancestors had been this "comfortable" we would have gone the way of the Archaeopteryx. We're already hairless and fleshy... once you add lazy into the mix, we're screwed. We really were this close to being just another layer in the fossil record. Could this be our next big step in evolution... forget the vestigial appendix, tonsils, or wisdom teeth... don't think about the slow disappearance of the pinky finger... these are trifles, mere toddling footsteps... I'm talking about the next huge evolution of the human form, the leap we take from the high dive of genetics.