I've started going back to the gym. At last! It has been, apparently, 10 months since my previous session. And there weren't that many then, either, since the year+ gap enforced by, well, you know.
Annoyingly, I was in my best shape of the past decade before the pandemic kicked off. That is a... pretty small loss, all things considered, but having spent so much time being knocked off my training game by this and that and LIFE, it had felt good to get back to that point.
I enjoy picking up heavy things and putting them down again. I think because I'm hypermobile, highly dynamic forms of exercise tend to fill me with... a certain anticipatory dread at best and major physical discomfort at worst. So, something focused and singular that also plays well with other aspects of my physiology... is fun. I struggle to motivate myself to do most other forms of exercise with the same obsessive regularity.
One thing that's struck me about this return to the gym is that the only thing that puts me off from going is a relatively minor (but subjectively massive) social awkwardness element. Specifically: if someone is using one of the (annoyingly finite) pieces of equipment I need, the thought of asking them when they'll be done and/or putting myself in the proverbial queue becomes an oddly insurmountable challenge.
I think it's a combination of a) loud background music/noise, b) a situation with no established social script, and c) me being there for a task that requires a mostly interior focus, being asked to mode-switch to an exterior one. I would mostly rather chew my own arm off than try to have that awkward non-conversation every damn time I go to the gym. It is, in effect, enough to put me off going altogether, and I have done my best, most consistent training in the past when I've had a schedule that allows me to go the gym at unorthodox times.
My instinctive response here is one that annoys me, which is the 'techno-solutionist' approach of having some external queue-layer, the digital equivalent of putting a coin down on the pool table. Tap a button on your phone, put yourself next in line for the squat rack, or see how long the wait is. But really, that's a distraction. All this actually is is a 'talking to people problem', and solving it by other means is just a bit silly.
Anyway, I was reminded of this partly by 'This DC-Area High-Tech Toilet Startup Wants to Solve the Public Bathroom Problem', which is also an extremely silly technological solution to a social problem (though in this case, 'social' in the 'vital public infrastructure' sense).
God, but it's so silly. "The sanitation industry is one of those that has not really been touched by much innovation and disruption". It doesn't need disruption! It just needs some modicum of public investment to accommodate a basic bodily function! Why are we putting up with this and coming up with tortuous solutions when it's so fundamental and basic?!
Anyway, as an antidote to that, look back to Belonging for some nice Simon Sarris writing which is relevant here. Going back to a space, again and again, is in itself a valuable thing for building familiarity and a sense of belonging. (Maybe it'll even be enough to get me to talk to a person.)