Embody yourself.
Photo by Carsten Sprotte
As a consumerist society, we spend millions trying to stay fit. We make repetitive movements using machines (steppers) then use other machines (elevators) to avoid climbing steps. We burn fossil fuel to get to a fitness center and pay to pedal inside. We burn fossil fuels to light and heat these fitness centers while wasting the kenetic energy generated by our physical efforts.
Along with plastic-wrapped bananas and electric can-openers, fitness centers rank high on the list of modern absurdities. The next level could be fitness centers specifically designed for our domestic animals. Clearly a daily doggy-jog is not enough to keep Fido fit.
The construction of every fitness center has consumed massive natural resources, fit for no other use than fitness. The production of cast-iron "weights" serve no other function than to be picked up and put down, over and over again. Cast iron production has a number of impacts on the environment, including greenhouse gas emissions, wastewater contaminants, hazardous wastes, and solid wastes. Because weights are heavy, they also require lots of energy to transport. The urban space taken by fitness centers could have been dedicated to something necessary or beautiful.
We can keep our bodies fit using nothing other than our bodies, with their supremely elegant design. We can also keep them fit by using them as our means of locomotion or a tool for physical work.
More subtlely, we do well to rethink our relationship with our bodies. Some will expend enormous efforts, even at the expense of their health, to make more money. Yet, health itself is invaluable. Who, deprived of sight, hearing, tasting, feeling, would not rather recuperate those senses rather than acquire some material possession?
Others obsess over their bodies, driven by a deficiency of self-worth.
To be fit is to be adapt for living to the fullest. To this end, the body is fit unto itself. It does not need to be supplemented, boosted, augmented, or cosmetically altered. If your body is not as you think it should be, will you not be loved? Supposing you mold it into your ideal form. You will then most likely attract a person who places equal importance on that ideal form. You will therefore remain dependant on the cosmetic adequacy of your body to feel worthy of love. How much muscle do you need to feel confident about yourself?
If you have not embodied your true self, you cannot have infallible confidence, and you cannot be authentically loved.
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