Pump Session
I don't think about exercise anymore, but I can't stop thinking about training. We could argue the details, but the difference merely has to do with the necessity of an outcome. There is a feeling associated with a session that embodies a result. I'm not talking about the proverbial "pump," although others' fixation on this topic does make me want to burst at the seams.
The idea circulating in my head asks whether I can translate and transmit a feeling to another. This feeling can be anything, but most of the time has to do with the root of what it is to live. Words will always fail here—despite communication being their sole purpose—because affect* is older than words; it reveals time immemorial. The Sun's first rays exposed desire, need, and an attraction towards that which creates and sustains in the early dawn of life. That is the feeling I chase; that is my pump session. Unfortunately, this presents a problem—the exact paradox I'm trying to avoid while simultaneously rushing towards it by writing this—which is thinking about feeling.
Evoking a change in emotion through physical means has something more profound to it than anything you might find in a prescription for exercise. The trajectory for this realization is standard for anyone that is really seeking personal transformation. It reveals one’s path through honesty, but is often cut short by “easy” answers and our cultural reliance on deceit. Most just want the physical result with the least amount of discomfort—truth hurts. Many will realize the importance that the mind plays in a physical result, they might even say that it’s primary. Few will reach beyond this and realize that the mind is simply another interface and possible distraction from achieving a tangible result. Thinking usurps feeling, overpowering sensations, and complicating the simple qualities of life itself. Thinking is the justification of observation—the judge and jury of NOT doing. Thinking is an abstraction of living, yet we convince ourselves and each other more by the day that the highest order of life is sentience that is self-aware to the point of thought. This can't be true. The observer cannot be the player, at least not coherently. Either you are living, or you aren't; how well you do that is up to you. Life is black and white; awareness is on a spectrum.
Training in a specific manner—an action that elicits a particular response—captures this fleeting and essential feature of existence. Its power allows communication between two living beings without words. The "1000-yard stare" says more than I might ever explain in prose. Most will not notice the subtle difference between exercise and training—or more relevantly, between living and existing—because they aren't looking. The difference in outcome may be a guide, offering something more than a furrowed brow and a stream of sweat.
All these years later we still contend that the "look" is a byproduct of capability, and still, the meaning may be lost, depending on the audience. The "look" is not an aesthetically-pleasing body. It is the gaze that occurs after an experience frees the soul from its bounded master. Form follows function. What you can see is based on what you are willing to feel. What you feel is based on what you are open to experience.
The punchline to the universe's joke is that our highly regarded "intelligence" as a species allows our internal commentators to convince us that they are the game. We put thoughts at the forefront, but they are the background noise to action. They are present but not required—like most people.
*3:1 [German Affekt, borrowed from Latin affectus] psychology
a: a set of observable manifestations of an experienced emotion : the facial expressions, gestures, postures, vocal intonations, etc., that typically accompany an emotion
