Not Special

This is the sixth essay in POISON, written originally circa 2011, and while it reads like an essay about fitness and training, I was ranting about the self-delusion of personal uniqueness (and its commercial implications). The above image was shot in a temporary training space in Djupavik, Iceland, illuminated by an infrared heater, captured by a Leica Monochrom 246 with a Summilux 50mm, wide open at f1.4 and ISO 5000.

We are daily bombarded by solutions to real and imagined problems. I saw something today claiming that the future of training is in the past, and that primal eating and activity is the way forward. Constantly analyzing and accepting or rejecting these solutions is a time-killer without equal. And quite often, an adopter, realizing how much time and energy he or she invested in finding a personally acceptable solution starts to proselytize and defend it, and eventually offend everyone in ear- or screen-shot. The louder they shout — and I've been a shouter — the more I reject them. And the more I ask, "what is good?"

What gets people to pay better attention is good.

If group workouts do so, great.

If a new training fad makes you exercise in the first place, great.

If zone/ paleo/ eat for your blood type/ whatever-the-fuck makes you more aware of your eating behavior and take steps to correct it, great.

But that's all it is so why do we give product and promises and shortcuts, i.e. the so-called solutions, supernatural power? Why do we imagine an easy way out? Have we dug ourselves so miserably deep that only hope offers a lifeline?

Doing the hard work we know is needed to reverse course is the more difficult act to imagine. So we stake our future on failed shortcut after dead-end miracle. How long will it take to learn? How much time will be wasted before we buckle down and get on with unfucking what we have done to ourselves?

First we have to quit believing the hype of our uniqueness. When we are told over and over we are elite and special we begin to believe it, and to search for particular, individual activities or supports to help improve us. But how special could one possibly be? How different? Is a bio-identical supplement needed? Or a signature diet and training and sleep plan?

If buying into it makes you pay better attention and causes consistent, heightened awareness then yes: useful but not necessary. Haile Gebrselassie grew up on a crap diet with no supplements and set 27 world records. There are others like him. And if this level of performance is not dependent on special diets or supplements or shoes or a magic jockstrap then how could all of that be necessary at the very mediocre levels of performance we can achieve?

Pay attention. Understand your actual current condition. Define realistic objectives. Learn what it will take to achieve them. Execute and hold yourself to the standard you determined was required. Do not allow distraction. Pay attention.

And when the snake oil salesmen come around don't take the bait. Deep inside you know that what is needed cannot be bought or sold.