Conversations For Transformation:
Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard
Conversations For Transformation
Essays By Laurence Platt
Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard
And More
The Only Thing Worse Than Going To The Gym
In-Shape Health Club, Napa, California, USA
May 14, 2019
"If I'd known I was gonna live this long, I'd have taken better care
of myself."
... James Hubert "Eubie" Blake
I am indebted to Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde who contributed
material for this conversation.
To tell you
the truth,
I've never been naturally excited about
participating
in gymnastics or about playing sports (in this
conversation
I'm not including
the gentle art of surfing
in "sports"). Nor have I ever considered myself to be a "jock" (and
I've got no reason to believe you'd ever mistake me for being one
either). I'm definitely not a bodybuilder or a "gym rat"
by natural disposition. Yet with all that said, I've
discovered
I must take on being some of all of the above, or things
don't go well - and there's no way of avoiding that. It's just
what's so.
When it comes to health and physical fitness, Life itself has the
last word:
in the end, no matter what, no one gets out of here alive. It's a
realization which confronts both the unhealthy and the unfit just as
equally as it confronts the healthy and the fit. And until this play
ends, my body will
inexorably
degrade (again, that's just
what's so).
So is there any point in trying to interfere with this inevitable
degradation, knowing that any interference is doomed?
Listen:
it's not a matter of me interfering with this eventuality. It's a
matter of what options are available to me in the
meantime ie until this eventuality fully plays itself out.
It's a matter of how I include it, and how I take responsibility for it
in the process. It's something I've come to terms with. It's something
for you to consider taking on too and engaging with. The trouble is
there's no incentive to engage in any activity if in the end, we all
already know it's going to prove
futile.
And the evidence shows many of us have already cast it as
futile
and chosen to take no action at all in this regard (taking no
action at all is indeed also a valid choice).
Look, if I have any leaning at all, I'm an ideasguy.
For me there's no higher expression than coming up with and / or
being around
an exquisitely great idea. For me,
listeningWernerspeaking,
is on a par with gazing at the
Mona Lisa
or Blue Nude or
David.
They awe me. Ideas have power to bring
new worlds
and new possibilities into existence. Yet what I get as I confront
this, is my ideas alone aren't enough to translate into being healthy
and fit without any additional action taken on my part. It's more than
that actually. It's if I don't at least pay attention to and take on my
own physical fitness as I age, the
inexorable
degradation of my body not only can but will skew my attention away
from bringing forth great ideas. That's a vicious circle. Yet
they're in service to each other (so it seems): my physical fitness
provides a
platform
on which great new ideas can come forth and thrive, and great new ideas
support pragmatic choices which result in caring for my health and
physical fitness.
What then is the best way forward? As I said, going to the gym is
definitely not one of my favorite activities (I'm
sorry,
it just ain't). In an earlier era, I couldn't have considered anything
worse than going to the gym (and I heaped scorn, disdain,
and derision on those who did). Then I
discovered
something I was doing every day anyway which was actually far
worse than going to the gym, something which is arguably
the only thing worse than going to the gym. And this
discovery
shocked me into renegotiating my
view
of and my attitude about being responsible for my own health and
physical fitness, and what I'm committed to doing about it.
So ...
Q: What's the only thing worse than going to the gym? (what
could be worse than that?). A: The only thing worse than
going to the gym, is not going to the gym.
Seriously. What's worse than going to the gym, is what happens to my
body if I don't go to the gym (that's
the truth).
No one's immune. It's just a
what's so
about being a human being. Sure you can ignore it (or try to). But that
doesn't mean it loses its
inexorability
or goes away. You don't have to win any body-building awards. But you
do need to do something ie anything that promotes physical
fitness, and you need to do it daily. I aspire to swim, run, and work
out with weights on each of three successive days before starting again
at day one. That's the
platform
(or at least it's aplatform)
on which I
write
these
Conversations For
Transformation.
That's another way of saying it's a
platform
on which I'll live
my life
- at least for as long as I have both. Things go better this way. They
just do. It's what I've
discovered.