Kids. They always seem to have boundless energy, right? Us grown-ups can 
hardly keep up with them. Why is that?



Watch a bunch of people standing in a queue. Everybody's pretty annoyed 
to be there, right? Everybody's looking around and shuffling their feet 
and generally bored. But everybody, none the less, is quietly and 
patiently waiting.

Except the guy who has a kid with him. Because us adults will grudgingly 
stand there, staring into space and thinking about... Charlotte Church, 
or Match of the Day, or Chaotic Nonlinear Dynamical Systems, but a kid? 
Kids literally cannot *bare* being bored FOR EVEN ONE SECOND! I'm bored, 
I want to do something interesting NOW!! And kids can't. Stay. Still. 
For. One. Second. They must move. Constantly. All the time. And so this 
kid will hop on one foot. Play with the inevitable collection of crisps 
and sweets on the display stands. Fiddle with his shoelaces. Flap like a 
duck. ANYTHING to avoid staying still.

And what does dad do? "Oi! Behave yourself. Stand still!"

Hypothesis: Once upon a time, we all had boundless energy. And then we 
spent the next 20 years being constantly told "Sit still. Stop messing 
around. Be quiet. Don't touch that. Be patient. Wait. Stop wandering 
around." And so forth.

And we all became so unfit that small children make us feel tired just 
be looking at them.

Think about it. If you were *constantly* moving, every second of every 
day, on the bus, in the car, standing in queues, sitting in the doctor's 
waiting room, sitting at your desk, *almost* doing something, almost 
fidgetting... HOW FIT WOULD YOU BE?! How much exercise is that??

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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