Team Descartes Thinkers

At age 50 I discovered that I was on Team Bubba, a Reactor - drinking soda, munching down bowls of chips during games, and having a bowl of ice cream after dinner. Gaining weight. Not exercising.

To stop being a Reactor, I had to be a Thinker. I had to think about what I ate, think about nutrition, and think about fitness. I studied. I read. I was not alone. Most Americans were having the same struggles.

It took me a year to get fit - to cut 40lbs, to be eating real food 95% of the time, to work out 3 to 5 days a week, and to walk daily. After helping myself - I had the passion of a recent convert. I searched for ways to help others.

Rene Descartes wrote “I think, therefore I am.”

Team Descartes Thinkers practice “I think, therefore I am fit.”

Team Descartes gives you a tribe to reach your potential. Daycart is the mascot, as that is how Descartes is pronounced.* The team and mascot represent our best qualities – awareness, vision, understanding, thinking, and making good decisions.

Rene Descartes was a Thinker

• Wrote “Cogito, ergo sum,” or “I think, therefore I am.” A concept that laid the foundation of modern philosophy. 

• Was a tutor to royalty – what we now call a life coach.

• Taught about the disconnect between what our senses tell us and reality.  For us, things might be designed to taste great and yet, be terrible for us, they deceive us

• Was a strong believer in mind over desires.  He was optimistic and taught that ‘the weakest of souls can gain mastery of their passions (habits)’. 

• Studies were wide ranging – He advanced math, science, and philosophy - yet remained focused on health. He wrote to the Marquess of Newcastle that, “the preservation of health has always been the principal end of my studies.”

• Descartes influenced the American Revolution. 

“In tandem with men like John Locke, John Hobbes, and Voltaire, Descartes spurred society to re-examine its traditions and institutions, leading to massive social upheaval. Both the American and French Revolutions were based on Enlightenment theories, and the ways we approach science, math, philosophy, and the idea of the self were radically transformed during the period.”

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/descartes/context.html

Mascot Research

If you are going to have a team, you want a good mascot. The bald eagle stood out as a mascot option. Wild birds don’t get obese because fat birds can’t fly.  Eagles’ have dense, highly effective brains and great vision. The bald eagle was selected by America's Founding Fathers to symbolize the potential of America.

“The eagle with its keen eyes symbolized perspicacity, courage, strength and immortality, but is also considered "king of the skies" and messenger of the highest gods.”               https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_(heraldry)

With my average SAT verbal, I thought – “Perskipittywhatty???” A link away:

Perspicacity is a penetrating discernment—a clarity of vision or intellect which provides a deep understanding and insight.

Which brings us back to Descartes:

In 17th century Europe René Descartes devised systematic rules for clear thinking in his work Regulæ ad directionem ingenii (Rules for the direction of natural intelligence). In Descartes' scheme, intelligence consisted of two faculties: perspicacity, which provided an understanding or intuition of distinct detail; and sagacity, which enabled reasoning about the details in order to make deductions. Rule 9 was De Perspicacitate Intuitionis (On the Perspicacity of Intuition). He summarised the rule as;

We should totally focus the vision of the natural intelligence on the smallest and easiest things, and we should dwell on them for a long time, so long, until we have become accustomed to intuiting the truth distinctly and perspicuously.       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspicacity

That’s what we want - to see past the false happy-happy-joy-joy culture surrounding addictive hooks like sweetness and see the reality that they harm us.  For me, it took months to grasp that sugar and refined carbs had been ruining my health, and the health of most Americans:

“Sweetness is love” was wrong. “Sweetness leads to illness” was true.

In summary:

• The Eagle symbolizes "perspicacity" and "perspicacity" was taught by Rene Descartes.

• The founding fathers picked the American Bald Eagle as the nation’s symbol and studied Descartes.

• Descartes is pronounced Daycart.

Team Descartes gives you a mindset to improve your fitness and reach your potential. Our team mascot, Daycart, is a not-so-bald, American Bald Eagle, with Descartes’ mustache and hair.

“We Think, therefore we are fit.”

*Note: Descartes is pronounced “Daycart.”  I read the book Descartes Bones by Russell Shorto about ten years ago. Since I had never taken French, I clumsily read it as “dez – kart – ez” – thousands of times while reading the book. A good book would have been better if I’d known that it’s pronounced the shorter, smoother “Daycart.”