Although I am removed from the culture of die-hard gym-goers, I admit that exercise is very important to me — for both my mental and physical health. As I reluctantly got geared up for the gym last Monday, I realized that it was closed due to the pending storm. After not much thought at all, in Forrest Gump style, I just started jogging. As I reached the grad college, I thought that I must be crazy — it was practically dark and small pellets of snow were threatening to become full-blown flurries. But in the same instant I realized it was one of the most beautiful runs I've ever experienced. The round bushes that buttress the grad school were covered with a thin layer of frost — an icy version of Magic Shell ice cream sauce. The field at the Institute was untouched by human or animal. But the best part of all was the absence of Nikes banging on treadmills, the clanking of metal upon metal and the stuffy recycled air of the Stephens Center.
With ominous dates hanging over our heads, many flock to the gym to let off steam, to get the blood flowing, to reinvigorate themselves. But really, how invigorating is the gym anyway? How good do I feel after waiting 20 minutes for a machine, watching a vigorously bobbing ponytail in front of me, while trying to read the lips of Oprah and, after a period of time that seems agonizingly long, learning that I've burned the calories of one piece of bread I ate in the morning? Not so much. This is because we've created a monster out of this thing called exercise. So many people are in there because they feel obligated — either because they are motivated by their own guilt or indirectly by that from someone else. Or they feel obligated to exercise because of our society's obsession with thinness. While running outside, I was spurred on by the image of being stranded somewhere near the Seminary waist high in flash-storm snow, rather than my visual media-influenced mind cursing at me for eating two handfuls of yogurt-covered pretzels instead of just one. The gym seems to give this false sense of security that we categorize under the pretense of empowerment when it's just another way to regulate ourselves.
In this time of high stress due to theses, JPs, summer jobs and numerous other tasks we must accomplish, I encourage people to do what really rejuvenates them rather than what someone else or society has fabricated as something necessary and good to do. After spending all day in a carrel, it's hardly gratifying to nudge your way onto the sit-up mat, only to stretch within smelling distance of someone else's armpits. The Stephens Center is breathing with competition and measurements and judgment. Don't we already have enough of that in our academic lives? Does it have to so directly flow into our 'free time?' I say no. Let's rage against the machine — literally — and get some fresh air before it's too polluted because the stairmasters and elliptical machines are running consistently thirteen hours a day, every day. Sabrina King is a religion major from Laguna Niguel, CA. She can be reached at sking@princeton.edu.
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