have you tried not being a "thought daughter"?
in defense of meatheads
“Calm down small fry, I know. If you break a nail it’s everyone’s problem.”
Moved by chivalry, my damsel in distress doe-eyes, or the bad mood that would follow if I did, heaven forbid, break a neon yellow nail, gym bro Joe re-racked my weights for me.
A fist bump was all the thanks he needed as he popped his AirPods back in and resumed his set. The 6am crowd is one of few words. We hardly even exchange names. Spot each other when needed. Yell out a “nice set bro” when the set is indeed a nice one. There’s an unspoken camaraderie here, each of us quietly putting in the work, disassociating from the mind by connecting with the body. The only soundtrack is the clanging and banging of the weights and someone yelling something about pain being weakness leaving the body. The 6am crowd didn’t rise before the sun to fuck around. We came to find out.
Once that gym session ends and I've washed away all signs of chalk from my perfectly manicured (ok, calloused) hands, I fall back into my other roles. The type A personality girl boss. The scowl faced too-cool-to-look-up-from-her-book chick next to you on the subway (reading Dostoevsky, no less). The elder goth in a Joy Division t-shirt and Mary Janes.
Meathead by dawn, “thought daughter” by dusk?
The “thought daughter”, the “literary it girl” is not novel. Central Park is full to the brim with the Joan Didion’s of the world- bows in their hair, a New Yorker tote on their waif-like arms and first edition hardcover over the old brag of their I am I am I am heart1. How will you know for sure if one walks among you? Ask to see their library card. She’s probably binge watching Gilmore Girls right now, and you bet your ass she’s team Jess.
I have lived entire years inside of my dark little head. Thought daughter’ed my way through my young adult life, looking for answers in Nietzsche and solace in a Brontë sister. And I found it there, sure. They have served me well.
The constant ruminating, the never-ending philosophizing - that shit also drove me fucking mad. For someone who came out of the womb already too self-aware, staring into my own void2 might not have been the best thing for my overall mental health. Dostoevsky believed “to be too conscious is an illness- a real thorough going illness”3… the man was right. I quickly became sick.
Of myself, mostly.
I searched for reprieve from my self-afflicted pain in alcohol. In drugs. In staring into others voids when my own began to bore me. In more academia. Temporarily I’d forget who I was. But the point was never to forget. I liked this girl, after all. I just wanted to stop analyzing her so goddamn hard.
One summer morning I walked by a neighbors garage gym. She had the doors open. Music blasting.
“Hey, wanna lift? I could use a spot.”
Sister, you fucking said it. “I could use a spot too,” I thought. And the universe gifted me one.
I found it in the thrill of squatting twice my body weight for the first time. I found it in the joy of nailing my first pull-up after a year of trying. I found it in the adrenaline rush I get after catching a wave on the Jersey Shore, in strapping up my rollerblades every spring after a long winter, in skiing upstate New York’s black diamond trails. That spot I was looking for, I found it when I loosened that tight grip I had on my mind and channeled it into my long-forgotten body.
The other gym patrons don’t care about your thoughts. They only need to know how many sets you have left. For them a grunt and an occasional fist bump is enough. There’s a reason the recently heartbroken, the perpetually overworked and underpaid, those with the heaviest burdens on their shoulders trying to reinvent or reconnect with parts of themselves they’d lost, the early risers and the late night grinders, they all find refuge in the iron temple. It’s there that they carve out some time to start listening to themselves.
In his Republic (written in between sets of benching, no doubt) thought daddy of all thought daddy’s, Plato, argued for physical exercise as key to achieving personal balance: “It’s the person who makes the best blend of physical exercise and culture, applies them to the mind in the right proportions, whom we should really describe as virtuoso and as having the most harmony in his life.” I can’t pretend I have achieved the kind of enlightenment he’s talking about, but I know by looking outside of myself I am a little closer every day.
As long as I keep my library card close, the prodigal thought daughter can always return.
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche
Notes from the Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky
I was on my butt reading substack when I should be in my garden in the 96 degree heat, digging.
Thanks for that wake up. Gotta get that Meat head balance :)
Heading out to dig now :)
As a fellow writer-meathead, I can totally relate to this. Any time I've mentioned weight lifting to creatives I've been acquainted with in real life, or when I mentioned that I'd been in the military, they seemed put off, like they suddenly decided I was not one of them anymore. I happen to be a huge Gilmore Girls fan, consider Sylvia Plath to be one of my biggest early influences, AND love discussing my latest favorite routines for swole arms. 😁
During the pandemic, when I watched how some of the people in my life who work with their hands still had to go out to work while I got to work from home, because I get paid to think, I started reflecting a lot on what a luxury it is to do what I do and how essential the balance of laborers to thinkers is to making our society work. There are certainly many blue collar types who are also intellectuals, but I think the ones who aren't are sadly very undervalued by intellectuals. I think I may develop this idea further and write a post on it at some point.