Life and the Mind

The Faculty of Graduate Studies at my university sees fit to adorn each of the rooms used for PhD oral exams with chirpy motivational posters, usually featuring nature scenes–mountain tops, rivers, whales, etc.–extolling the virtues of hard work,big dreams, good habits, and a positive attitude. In December I spend some time in these rooms as part of the rush that we all make to see students through before winter fess are payable. Sometimes I’m chairing (usually when there is a female student with an all male examining committee) and at other times examining. In any case I spend too much time looking at these posters. And don’t get me wrong: I have nothing against nature or positive attitudes. But to me they’ve always seemed more annoying than inspirational, more trite than true. If they work for you, great, but don’t inflict them on others.  For some time I’ve wanted to replace them with the anti-motivationalposters,found at this website and then see how long it would take people to notice.

This week I said goodbye to my health club membership. In part, it’s for the usual reason. I am not there enough to justify the cost. I have a Y membership and like lifting weights at the Y better–more free weights, real metal (I hate rubber coated plates), and less attitude.  I also prefer my cardio outdoors–biking, cross country skiing, running along the river. And I’ve fallen in love with the Velodrome and track biking. Pure speed and pleasure. Yum. But I did love the Bodyflow classes at GL–nice mix of tai chai, yoga, and pilates. Fast paced for attention deficit disorder exercisers  like me.  And good friends taught the classes. If I could have transported into the classes, avoiding the ads and the locker room, I’d have done it. But I really couldn’t take  the emphasis on weight loss and physical beauty, where that means skinny and 20. It wasn’t even presented as one of the many goals one might have. It was the only thing promoted in the women’s change room. I love the Y locker room for its range of body shapes and sizes, tattoes and wrinkles, all ages, physical and mental abilities.In Goodlife the mostly beautiful, mostly 25-35 year old women hid behind towels. Too modest for me. I made a point of stripping naked there, walking across the room, and talking to friends naked, any excuse to change the norm. Anyway,I complained about the weight loss posters. Emailed head office.No reply. Talked lots of my friends the instructors and got sympathy but no progress. A staff memberat work tried their weight loss program which consisted of a 1400 calorie a day starvation diet. She was told she’d be too weak some days to do much exercise. Final straw? A spin class instructor-skinny minnie–talking to a class about how fat she was and how many calories we’d burn in an hour. Did I care? No.I was there as a cyclist to maintain speed,fitness over the winter. She was the thinnest person there! Did she think the women in that class would find that motivational? ARGH. I quit. Having discovered what I love about being fit and about exercise–speed,the outdoors, being strong, going fast and hard for as long as I can–I thought I could reenter a traditional gym and keep my healthy body image intact. I was wrong. More on what I do love about weight lifting  (the one thing I do need a gym for) another time.