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| Books Are Good for You |
I've been going to the gym on a regular basis for about 15 years. First couple years I went with Spud, who is a superb gym partner because he lifts enormous weights and is cool and knows exactly who Henry Rollins is. After that I moved away and would go with my friend Jeff, who is also a superb gym buddy. Throwing some weights around with your peeps is one of life's great pleasures. Some people like to wear headphones and work out alone. I prefer company.
Jeff and I would lift weights and talk through our ups and downs, breakups and arguments and personal or professional successes and disappointments and whatever else. We had an expression that we would use on a regular basis: The gym is your friend.
By that I mean that the gym is always there for you; the gym will never not return your calls. The gym provides excellent ROI.
Over the years I have noticed that the gym delivers equanimity. If I am up, the gym settles me down. If I am down, the gym picks me up. Day in, day out the gym is a constant wherever I am physically (whether I am fresh or fatigued), intellectually (whether distracted or focused) or emotionally (whether up or down).
Injuries have slowed me down the past 6 months, and that is its' own lesson: Getting old is a bitch. So is getting hurt.
Henry Rollins (who is
the kind of Progressive that I think the world could do with more of) wrote a famous essay about the immutable quality of time spent in the gym and the things you learn there. It appeared in Details magazine in 1994. What's great about it is that it was true before he put the words down, and it will be true long after he is gone.
You can find your true spiritual self in a lot of ways and a lot of places, and that's cool. I'll meet you there. But 200 pounds is always 200 pounds, and the weights aren't going to lift themselves.
Here is the complete essay. Thanks to
RossTraining for posting a version, and thanks to
Ben Oliver for bringing it to my attention.
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Iron and the Soul – By Henry Rollins
I believe that the definition of definition is reinvention. To
not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself.
Completely.
When I was young I had no sense of myself. All I was, was a product
of all the fear and humiliation I suffered. Fear of my parents. The
humiliation of teachers calling me “garbage can” and telling me I’d be
mowing lawns for a living. And the very real terror of my fellow
students. I was threatened and beaten up for the color of my skin and my
size. I was skinny and clumsy, and when others would tease me I didn’t
run home crying, wondering why. I knew all too well. I was there to be
antagonized. In sports I was laughed at. A spaz. I was pretty good at
boxing but only because the rage that filled my every waking moment made
me wild and unpredictable. I fought with some strange fury. The other
boys thought I was crazy.
I hated myself all the time. As stupid at it seems now, I wanted to
talk like them, dress like them, carry myself with the ease of knowing
that I wasn’t going to get pounded in the hallway between classes. Years
passed and I learned to keep it all inside. I only talked to a few boys
in my grade. Other losers. Some of them are to this day the greatest
people I have ever known. Hang out with a guy who has had his head
flushed down a toilet a few times, treat him with respect, and you’ll
find a faithful friend forever. But even with friends, school sucked.
Teachers gave me hard time. I didn’t think much of them either.
Then came Mr. Pepperman, my advisor. He was a powerfully built
Vietnam veteran, and he was scary. No one ever talked out of turn in his
class. Once one kid did and Mr. P. lifted him off the ground and pinned
him to the blackboard. Mr. P. could see that I was in bad shape, and
one Friday in October he asked me if I had ever worked out with weights.
I told him no. He told me that I was going to take some of the money
that I had saved and buy a hundred-pound set of weights at Sears. As I
left his office, I started to think of things I would say to him on
Monday when he asked about the weights that I was not going to buy.
Still, it made me feel special. My father never really got that close to
caring. On Saturday I bought the weights, but I couldn’t even drag them
to my mom’s car. An attendant laughed at me as he put them on a dolly.
Monday came and I was called into Mr. P.’s office after school. He
said that he was going to show me how to work out. He was going to put
me on a program and start hitting me in the solar plexus in the hallway
when I wasn’t looking. When I could take the punch we would know that we
were getting somewhere. At no time was I to look at myself in the
mirror or tell anyone at school what I was doing. In the gym he showed
me ten basic exercises. I paid more attention than I ever did in any of
my classes. I didn’t want to blow it. I went home that night and started
right in.
Weeks passed, and every once in a while Mr. P. would give me a shot
and drop me in the hallway, sending my books flying. The other students
didn’t know what to think. More weeks passed, and I was steadily adding
new weights to the bar. I could sense the power inside my body growing. I
could feel it.
Right before Christmas break I was walking to class, and from out of
nowhere Mr. Pepperman appeared and gave me a shot in the chest. I
laughed and kept going. He said I could look at myself now. I got home
and ran to the bathroom and pulled off my shirt. I saw a body, not just
the shell that housed my stomach and my heart. My biceps bulged. My
chest had definition. I felt strong. It was the first time I can
remember having a sense of myself. I had done something and no one could
ever take it away. You couldn’t say shit to me.
It took me years to fully appreciate the value of the lessons I have
learned from the Iron. I used to think that it was my adversary, that I
was trying to lift that which does not want to be lifted. I was wrong.
When the Iron doesn’t want to come off the mat, it’s the kindest thing
it can do for you. If it flew up and went through the ceiling, it
wouldn’t teach you anything. That’s the way the Iron talks to you. It
tells you that the material you work with is that which you will come to
resemble. That which you work against will always work against you.
It wasn’t until my late twenties that I learned that by working out I
had given myself a great gift. I learned that nothing good comes
without work and a certain amount of pain. When I finish a set that
leaves me shaking, I know more about myself. When something gets bad, I
know it can’t be as bad as that workout.
I used to fight the pain, but recently this became clear to me: pain
is not my enemy; it is my call to greatness. But when dealing with the
Iron, one must be careful to interpret the pain correctly. Most injuries
involving the Iron come from ego. I once spent a few weeks lifting
weight that my body wasn’t ready for and spent a few months not picking
up anything heavier than a fork. Try to lift what you’re not prepared to
and the Iron will teach you a little lesson in restraint and
self-control.
I have never met a truly strong person who didn’t have self-respect. I
think a lot of inwardly and outwardly directed contempt passes itself
off as self-respect: the idea of raising yourself by stepping on
someone’s shoulders instead of doing it yourself. When I see guys
working out for cosmetic reasons, I see vanity exposing them in the
worst way, as cartoon characters, billboards for imbalance and
insecurity. Strength reveals itself through character. It is the
difference between bouncers who get off strong-arming people and Mr.
Pepperman.
Muscle mass does not always equal strength. Strength is kindness and
sensitivity. Strength is understanding that your power is both physical
and emotional. That it comes from the body and the mind. And the heart.
Yukio Mishima said that he could not entertain the idea of romance if
he was not strong. Romance is such a strong and overwhelming passion, a
weakened body cannot sustain it for long. I have some of my most
romantic thoughts when I am with the Iron. Once I was in love with a
woman. I thought about her the most when the pain from a workout was
racing through my body.
Everything in me wanted her. So much so that sex was only a fraction
of my total desire. It was the single most intense love I have ever
felt, but she lived far away and I didn’t see her very often. Working
out was a healthy way of dealing with the loneliness. To this day, when I
work out I usually listen to ballads.
I prefer to work out alone. It enables me to concentrate on the
lessons that the Iron has for me. Learning about what you’re made of is
always time well spent, and I have found no better teacher. The Iron had
taught me how to live. Life is capable of driving you out of your mind.
The way it all comes down these days, it’s some kind of miracle if
you’re not insane. People have become separated from their bodies. They
are no longer whole.
I see them move from their offices to their cars and on to their
suburban homes. They stress out constantly, they lose sleep, they eat
badly. And they behave badly. Their egos run wild; they become motivated
by that which will eventually give them a massive stroke. They need the
Iron Mind.
Through the years, I have combined meditation, action, and the Iron
into a single strength. I believe that when the body is strong, the mind
thinks strong thoughts. Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind
degenerate. I wallow in a thick depression. My body shuts down my mind.
The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. There is no
better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body
have been awakened to their true potential, it’s impossible to turn
back.
The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all
kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron
will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference
point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in
the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It
never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two
hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.
