another gymnist thing

Slate Magazine: "Yes, I think you're taking it too seriously when you respond to (almost) every single post.

'Must defend gymism! Must defend gymnism against these hordes of Anglican heretics!'

I don't disagree there's a wonderful feeling. The wonderful feeling one gets in the middle of a workout (an endorphin high?). It's a feeling of power, of self-confidence, of connecting to something bigger than yourself (ie, having more power than one does). I love that feeling too.

But it's a very serious feeling, it's incompatible with humor. Humor deflates power. It's hard to laugh at yourself looking at the mirror in a gym and not lose that feeling (you will be mere dust soon enough). As it's hard to laugh in the middle of sex. Or when defending your religion.

The O'Neill article deflates an illusion (debunking's in the subtitle of the column afterall), too - that going to a gym is a morally virtuous act by pointing out that people we know are immoral, ie, the terrorists, went to the gym. The more intense they were the more often they went. There was nothing bringing their mania back to earth. No healthy self-parody. No balance. No ying to their yang. (I'd imagine a Daoist fanatic is a contradiction in terms.)


So many people in the modern world have no idea that their physical existence can be a source of pleasure or satisfaction.



Modern people hate physical pleaure. Goddam. Except for sex, food and violence (even if the last is vicarious), of course.

people don't go to the gym out of a sense of virtue or self-righteousness; they go because their lives are too stressful,



People go to church for the same reason - to relieve stress. They may say it's because they are being virtuous, God-fearing and so forth, but social animals feel good when engaging in social bonding. (Something about endorphin high, perhaps?) Quite a few gym-goers confuse the causality relationship of the two feelings as well (the two are probably in a virtuous/vicious cycle).

I know I go to the gym because I have told myself it's the right thing to do, in the long run. How else to explain my getting up out of my comfortable stress-free Sunday and going for a bike ride or a swim? Certainly lounging around reading the paper would also reduce stress. So would beer and chocolate cake. Or video games on the computer. To go to the gym I need to persuade myself there's a 'higher' or more long-term reason to go. I've had to package it in a moral rationale (by way of health/market competitiveness). Everyone does - even if the moral rationale is 'Doing what feels good, is the right thing to do.' That's still a moral statement.

(Goddam, all this introspection is going to make it hard to go to the gym tomorrow. I need my myths. Luckily the lifeguard is cute.)

The connection between British/WASPs and flabbiness eludes me, also. Didn't the British Victorians practically invent modern athletics? From golf, tennis, soccer, rugby, cricket, rowing, etc.

Maybe what pisses you off is that the British commit the heretic's worse offense -- being silly."