On working out (9-28-18)

The heat-wave here continues.  Being an obsessive compulsive (my own diagnosis), I have to be working at something and since hiking would be unpleasant in this heat, I’ve begun another workout program – nothing new for me.  I’ve been working out off and on since I was 14 and discovered Charles Atlas.   It helps if I’m reading or seeing others working out and just this month discovered “Crossfit.”  [I continue to read Robert Browning, Tennyson & their critics, but I get creaky if I don’t hop up from time to time and run down stairs to lift some weights, do some crunches, work on my maxi-climber, etc.]

I have no interest in joining a Crossfit “box,” but it is an interesting phenomenon.  One practitioner called it a “Cult,” and it seems something like that.  I watched one Youtube video of someone starting a Crossfit box in Israel. 

Since I have always been (mostly) “fit” I have had occasion to debate “working out” with many who didn’t and preferred eating special foods and taking pills to ensure their good health and longevity.  I think most of those people have died – so no one is left (or well enough) to tell “I told you so.” 

I was reminded of H.G. Wells The Time Machine.   Of course there hasn’t been enough time for mankind to evolve into Eloi and Morlochs, but if Crossfit does sweep the land and become part of our ongoing-activity, our species might evolve into something very different. . . unless we evolve into Morlochs only.  Crossfit might make us physically strong (not that the Morloch’s were strong) but also addicted to excessive exercise to the neglect of intellectual endeavors thus producing a future species without an Eloi equivalent.