I was at the gym tonight and being Sunday and not too long before it closed, it was pretty empty. I normally go in the evening, because I tend not to do well with morning workouts, even though I feel better after them. It is like I can't push as hard, or I can't concentrate as well.
I am a night person anyway.
And today was the longest night.
That is 5 hours and 21 minutes of daylight.
And I wouldn't say that there is much light withing those hours anyway, since the sun doesn't travel much past the horizon all day. It kind of just bobs up for a moment, and then down again, as you can see from the degrees. It both rose closer to south than east, and set closer to south than west.
Now, you might be wondering what are the silly pictures in this article, but I did it as a bit of an experiment. I am not a selfie person, but see people all over the place taking selfies, including at the gym. Women posing in the mirror, pouting and looking for the best angle of their butt, and men (young men) flexing and taking shots.
It is brazen.
And I just don't have the confidence to stand there in the mirror, surrounded by people, taking pictures of myself. I don't even have the confidence to take pictures of myself when no one is around. I took a picture of me with our puppy the other day, and I felt sorry for the dog having to witness it.
I am closer to 50, than 40.
So I thought fuck it.
Not that I am going to start taking selfies of myself all the time, but I thought I would take some at the gym to see how it felt and I can tell you - it didn't feel good. But I wonder if there is some kind of psychological influence it could make where the people who take "gym selfies" are more likely to stick to routines and diets than those who don't. Perhaps because they are looking in the mirror at themselves so much, they are being "physically reflective" in the same way I write and explore my experience. Or perhaps, they can body shame themselves into being stricter, or pushing out an extra rep or something.
Does the photographic evidence carry some accountability?
What I do know though is that being too reflective can warp the view, whether spending too much time looking in the mirror, or too much time looking into the head. Too much focus suffers from two main problems. One is that it starts to lose comparative judgement with reality because it limits external experience. and two, the focus can keep narrowing onto smaller and smaller pieces, blowing them out of proportion. It is like looking at the face with one of those 5x magnifying mirrors. The horror.
Even if we don't admit it, we all compare ourselves to others.
Comparison is just a necessary part of our lives, even when there is no one around. We compare the taste of two different fruits, or two types of meats, or where we are standing right now in the sun, to that place over there in the shade. We compare to help us decide what our next steps are going to be. But then, we also compare for psychological safety, trying to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. Or to make ourselves feel worse about ourselves, when we don't live up to our own desires.
There are too many selfies.
The rise of individualism over the last four or five decades has been supercharged by the rise of anti-social media, where people are only there to push a view of themselves out to others, and compare the view of others to themselves. It is all a selfish act. Even the term "views" as a metric speaks to the isolationism of it. It is voyeuristic, not interpersonal. The engagement between humans doesn't matter, it is all about driving individual humans to view an advert, or an agenda.
Should I have an agenda?
Maybe I should make a "New Year Agenda" instead of a resolution.
I haven't been doing too much heavy power work lately, as I have a torn muscle (or done something) in my groin, so heavy squats are out. Mostly, I have been stretching and doing some light leg work to rehab my lower legs after the surgery. I would like to be able to do some dynamic movements like box jumps, but the injury won't allow me to. I don't even know how I got the injury!
The joys of aging.
But hey...
I managed a new experience for the day. Gym selfie.
Am I an influencer now?
Taraz
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