ABSORB ENERGY >>> DEFORM W/O FRACTURE

Every day on my way to work, I pass a sign on the side of a martial arts school that says “tough times dont last, tough people do.” (I also pass by one that says “MIXED MARTIAL ARTS NOT A SPORTS” which also seems significant, but I have yet to fully process its implications.) I used to laugh at this sign, but after a few months of it steadily buffeting my sleep deprived brain at 7:34 am, I think I’m starting to come around to the message. Except I’m really not sure what it means. Am I a tough people? I’ve never thought of myself as one. I guess I am lasting…but to what end?

They better not, man, I cain’t take this shit

The Hair Shirt
My routine is a fucking grind. Five days a week, I drag my ass out of bed before the sun comes up, pound a bowl of dietary fiber, and hop on my bike for a seven mile relay through the pothole-ridden, glass-speckled Chicago streets. Like a trim Vin Diesel, I am out there doin’ it a quarter mile at a time. Neck and neck with bleary eyed commuters, aggro yuppies, and scrap salvaging tweakers, I jump lights and dodge car doors just so I can start my day.

As much as school teachers love to get offended when people suggest that anyone could do our jobs, I halfway agree. I think most people could learn to be effective teachers. But I also think that the level of emotional and physical endurance our trade requires is almost universally underestimated, even amongst our supporters.

I used to believe that being a teacher was all about convincing kids that learning is fun. That’s a big part of it, but there is an attribute even above this: consistency. You show up. You show up. You show the fuck up. And when you show up, you meet ’em where they’re at. That means you prove you’re down for them on the days without breakthroughs. The days that aren’t fun. The late January through mid-March slog (or mid-April if you live in the Midwest), when the novelty of snow has long since worn off. The weeks solid where half the class is sick but mom and dad still gotta go to work, so here we all are, doing our best. Enduring.

The Irons
Now this is just the mandatory stuff. I haven’t even been over the ways I voluntarily discipline my mind and body. I’m about as unlikely of a candidate for exercise evangelism as you might find. But, hands down, the best $140 I ever spent was on an old bench and bar set I got from a dude in the Philly suburbs whose wife wanted her parking spot back in the garage (meaning I coulda got it for cheaper). There was no space inside our top floor row house apartment, so I had to put in on the balcony. I would lift outside in my coat during January to exorcise the trapped rat feeling the city gave me. I’ve gained some weight since then, and I swear more than half of it’s muscle, but this project was never really about getting ripped. I lift for my brains, not the gains.

I feel the need to make this distinction because mainstream workout culture skeeves me the fuck out. Chiseling yourself into a sculpture is a fundamentally selfish pursuit, in my humble opinion. Doesn’t do much for anybody around you, except to possibly make them feel inadequate for not looking like a highly vascular turkey roast. I think what’s at issue here is a fundamental disagreement on the nature of toughness. Reactionary thought holds that what is best in life is to transform ourselves into unfuckwithable ubermensches who need nothing they can’t take by force. I think that’s absolute dogshit. Aestheticizing social alienation is not a good look, but it is a great way to sell protein powder.

The Colonnade
So considering all of this, I must be a tough people, right? Right??? Well, here’s where false consciousness can throw you a curve. Our ability to endure the physical and psychological hardship of working class existence is admirable. I daresay it may even be worth celebrating with a Hamm’s or two. But overidentification with your ability to adapt to the harshness carries with it the distinct risk of making a virtue out of suffering. The Protestant work ethic will turn you servile if you let it. You go to bed an idealistic 20-something, out there doin’ it for the youth — come to wake up next morning aged 39 with mild gingivitis, permanent sleep circles, and the confused notion that what makes you a respectable person is your boundless capacity for thankless suffering.

If “toughness” means anything, I have to believe it’s the ability to be sturdy when others in your life need someone to lean on. It’s the recognition that, whatever you’re doing, you aren’t doing it alone. The stronger your cohort is, the more flexibility you retain when shit gets hectic. I believe the physicists will back me on this. If you sidestep the aesthetic preening, strength training can enhance your physical coordination and psychological fortitude. I lift weights to feel out the flexible boundaries of the corpse chariot in which my consciousness has been unceremoniously installed. I’m really in this thing, so I better make the most of it.

So my questions to those about to lift are as follows:
Does your routine rise above the crude onanism of self-domination?
Are you building a pillar or a statue?