Self-Punishment
A pet theory after three consecutive days of exercise
It seems counterintuitive, but the human body and mind want to suffer a little bit. We are programmed to seek joy and pleasure, but that gets boring after a while. Too much comfort, for too long, and we will seek pain in one form or another—physical, emotional, or spiritual. This is why couples tend to get into fights when on vacation in Hawaii. As someone who knows a thing or two about self-punishment (I have gone to the gym for three consecutive days), I feel justified to speak on the topic.
“The unfed mind devours itself.” When I first heard that quote in college I was like, oh-snap-oh-shit-damn-that’s-me. I still generally agree with the sentiment and would add one’s body into the equation.
Exercise is a form of punishment. Call it self care if you want, but let’s be honest, it mostly sucks. But not moving your body at all, that will devour the spirit. You get that awful, awful feeling where your body is just a way to transport your anxious and depressed head to meetings, totally detached from your physicality. Over the past year and a half, this feeling has become all too familiar.
To be clear: pain and suffering doesn’t have to be abject misery. I’m putting “self-punishment” in scare quotes here. It can come in the form of a challenge that is ultimately productive. In a word: discipline. Discipline and requisite pain is almost always the way to long-term satisfaction. Working out hurts for a few weeks when you’re getting started, but eventually, if you stick with it, it’s a pleasurable activity. Same goes for breaking bad habits and forming good ones.
As someone who has experienced a few bouts of serious depression in my life, what I’m trying to say is that I think your body and your mind will make you suffer a little bit no matter what. If you don’t feed your mind by being a genuinely curious person, it will turn inward and devour itself. If you don’t make your body suffer on your terms, it will make you suffer on its terms. It’s better to be the one briefly inflicting the “pain” than continually suffering under forces you seemingly can’t control.
To make this very tangible: it’s better to get super into birding and wonder what that bird is that you saw on Tuesday than wonder if the thing you said at dinner was weird and everyone thinks you’re a little freak. It’s better to feel like you’re going to throw up during a YouTube yoga class than have that listless, formless, anxious feeling that permeates your entire being for weeks on end. Is it a direct tradeoff? No. But is it working? Honestly yeah, kind of.
(I know this whole thing feels very goes to the gym once. But that’s wrong because it was three times.)
