Yesterday I posted a silly little image on blue sky:
If you know me, I’m usually just messing around having fun. But one of my followers there asked me why I would post such a picture. My response was pretty straightforward. I told the person that I could and that I wanted to, therefore I did. And I followed by saying that I was too old and had missed too many opportunities to live my life any other way.
Now I get why the person (it’s an anonymous account) would say that. Blue sky is not the place where people usually post gym pics. And Lord knows I’m not the prettiest guy to ever step in front of a camera. But I think the bigger question here was really about what is an academic doing posting gym pictures? Isn’t that too macho or masculine for my line of work?
I certainly don’t think so, though I get that people are expecting that kind of media presence on platforms such as Instagram or TikTok. But certainly I don’t equate weightlifting is inherently masculine or as I got the sense from the post, negative, since the follower replied that at least I read books and watched movies. This kind of irked me since I don’t think that thinking or lifting weights are contradictory. But I shrugged it off and thank the person for person noticing.
I know that people don’t expect historians to look like I do. It’s not like I’m a tiny little human teaching Reconstruction at a school in Alabama. I’m big. I’m writing to you today wearing a flannel shirt with no sleeves. But that’s kind of the point isn’t it? All kinds of people come in all kinds of shapes and sizes.
But the truth is I post pictures like this, as a reminder to myself about the value of physical strength in my life. I had never lifted weights before I started going through my divorce. And being stuck 2000 miles away from home in cold ass Minnesota…. Y’all, suicidal doesn’t even begin to describe how miserable I was.
Fortunate some great friends to help me get through that time. But the other part that got me through, it was lifting weights. For two hours a day, every day I could go into a gym and not think about my classes, some jerk professor I had to deal with, or how much I missed my kids. It was about doing the work. Moving the weight. And then those moments when the whole world felt like it was falling apart I could see I was actually getting better. I was actually getting stronger. That, was something.
I don’t lift as heavily now these days or as often. I’m getting older and I don’t need to throw around the big weights. Plus running Reckoning takes up most of my free time. But I’m still able to get into the gym three or four times a week. But I don’t need the gym like I used to.
I think now when I post these pictures, it’s only a message of body positivity, but a reminder to myself that when I was at my weakest, I got strong.
Hope you’re having a great Sunday.
Jason
Exercising your right to bare arms, as the founding fathers intended
For only the second time in my life I've become a gym rat. I got lucky and found a place that works with people with MS and neurological issues and doesn't believe that we should just give up and sit around. When I lost my husband, it's become a place of solace while I build muscles I didn't even realize I had. I think you're an inspiration.