Alloy

Why do people go to the gym? I am not asking about exercise in general. People run, bike, hike, take long walks, toss a frisbee around, or just remain active in an effort to avoid the gradual atrophy brought on by a sedentary lifestyle. But what of the gym? You get people from all walks of life, young and old, men and women, straight, gay, happy, sad...and they all go to this external location to pursue something.

There are myriad options at a standard gym for a person to torture themselves. There are weights. Some are as basic as raw pieces of steel and iron, while others are complex feats of Newtonian mechanics employing more pulleys and cables than one should bother counting. There is the cardio section, which is in many ways a practice in absurdity. You have legions of people exerting, sweating, and working very hard...at not moving. Whether they are on a stationary bike, a stairmaster, elliptical machine or treadmill, they are all doing the same thing, moving while standing still. Then there are the classes. These are unique. While the legions found wandering among the walls of iron or the constant whirring of human hamster wheels do so of their own accord, those that attend a class are given a General. Usually an enthusiastic and motivational athlete that ranges anywhere from an iron-fisted drill sergeant to a chihuahua on speed.

But what draws people to the weights or the treadmills or the classes? Is it fitness? Is it competition? Is it a vain attempt to fight back the passing of the years or maybe to ensure that they will have more years to enjoy? Is it completely separate from the physical? Do people go for the social element? To find a friend or a mate perhaps? In my many years of attending a variety of gyms I think it is all and none of the above.

After you spend enough time in the gym you start to develop a set of personal rules and codes. There are the people you like, there are the people you tolerate, and there are those that you utterly cannot stand. There are exercises you prefer and those that you hate (even if you know they are good for you). But you also develop mental techniques to cope with the truth of what you are doing. You are either sitting in place moving some oddly shaped metal object, or moving without moving and suffering while doing it, or you have Pepmaster-5000 screaming instructions at you while you bound around floor mats, steps or giant inflatable balls. All of these are absurd when you see them for what they are, but you do them for whatever reason brought you to the gym in the first place, and you need to distract yourself.

I often occupy myself with simple questions. I am inquisitive by nature and often question my surroundings. After seeing The Matrix I began to wonder just how many calories are burned at a gym in a twenty four hour period of time. Did the machines in The Matrix have it all wrong? They tried to tap sleeping humans for energy...maybe they would have been better served if they had fed them something more than soylent green and put them all on treadmills. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to calculate the calories burned. I wonder if some of the weight machines are the byproduct of ectomorph sadistic physics majors looking to punish the proverbial 'jock.' I ask these questions, but they quickly fade, and I am left with a single question, 'Why am I here? Why am I running in place? Swimming laps? Moving this piece of steel?' Then even the questions fade, and I am simply doing. Not only am I doing, but I am feeling and thinking and being, all three done in unison. I don't know why others go to the gym, but I know now why I go.

I have spent the majority of my life believing myself to be a cerebral creature. A man that thinks first, acts second. I managed to fool myself into believing that this was true for a very long time. But that strange animal called emotion slumbered below the decks of the freighter 'Brandon,' and everytime it stirred, the whole ship rocked. A beast of vast proportions and great strength. I know what eventually woke him...pain. Not the type of pain you can bandage and easily mend. Neosporin was a woefully inadequate remedy for this type of hurt, for the hull of the ship was breached and what good is a disinfectant on a rusty hull and a sinking vessel?

What does this have to do with the gym? When that beast awoke, it had no direction, no sight, no control. It was blind and raging. But for all its size and strength, it could not get out of harmful waters. It could not steer the ship. Herein is my conundrum. I find that I lead best from the heart. I live off of drive, impulse, raw intensity and passion, but those qualities will not steer me to calm seas and a rising sun. They may provide the energy and vitality, but not the will nor the path. I try to help my heart and mind speak to one another, but I might as well ask a wolf to speak with an owl. They are not the same creature and they do not speak the same language. The Visceral does not cooperate with The Wise. But I know a time when they had to work together to steer my ship to safety. I know what triggered that cooperation...pain.

Why do I go the gym? To induce pain and to hope that as I break down the walls between heart and mind I can come to a more complete center. The pain is different than before. This one is controlled. It is physical, not mental or emotional. It is a pain of the body. A bone-tired exhaustion, a burning off muscles, a straining of joints. Through the anvil and forge of the body I beat the heart and mind into a malleable alloy and work to make a finer steel. I find it ironic that in moving and striving against the alloy of plate steel I seek to become a molten composite myself. What will this material become once it is properly worked? I have no idea. What will be, will be. All I know for certain is that the edict, 'nosce te ipsum' has never been more profound to me than it is now, and I feel blessed for having found a means to open a door to mind, body, heart and soul...the door is just very very heavy, and I need to move it from one place to another in smooth, controlled repetitions.