How much can you really say about building muscle or burning fat or going through these sleep-inducing videos about picking the right supplements (that don’t work unless it’s creatine or illegal)?
I ain’t that guy.
You know why I don’t find that interesting anymore?
It’s like car guys down at the garage talking shop about big-block engines. You show off your tools to the boys who already get the Insider Lingo.
Everybody else? They’re lost.
What’s more interesting is WHY all these fitness tools and tactics matter to somebody.
Think about the many kinds of obsessive weirdos who make fitness or sport or physical activity into part of their identity.
That’s unusual. A little bit odd. It’s an outsider subculture that does more to keep people out than invite them in.
You start to understand why normies see lifting and diet as intimidating and difficult to understand.
We’re on the wrong side of the Looking Glass from Alice.
Let’s shift gears for a second. It sounds strange to say, but you can honestly ask the question:
Why does your health matter to you?
Some of us come to care about our bodies for their own sake. We understand what it’s like to have things go wrong with our health… and how much better life is when your body is working to its best.
But a lot of people need a bigger context for their physique and performance goals.
Why does having a nice looking body matter to you?
Why is it important for you to squat over double body weight?
Those sound like questions with an obvious answer.
I dare you to sit with them in silence for five minutes and see what comes to you.
I’m enough of an obsessive personality that those goals take on their own importance for me. They matter because they matter. But even for me, there are bigger-picture motivations driving me.
For “average” people, those that haven’t done activity since high school sports — or ever?
Whole different universe.
In ethics there’s a question that comes up over and over again:
Why should I be good?
This is called the problem of moral motivation.
Low-grade smartboys on reddit waste their time arguing about whether an action is good or right (“moral” as they say).
Whether an action is right or wrong is beside the point. Even if you can convince a person that there are good or better ways to live life as a human being, you’ve got another problem to deal with:
Humans are able to decide what to do and how to live our lives.
Figuring out who I am and what matters most to me is a key part of how our society understands ourselves as individuals.
For any puritanical moralist preaching his Thou Shalt, it’s always possible for the freely-choosing person to ask “why should I?”
Squaring the circle of a good well-lived life with human freedom turns out to be a devilish problem for ethics.
How do you convince somebody to do something that they don’t want to do, even when they agree that it’s worth doing?
Hell of a head-scratcher, that question.
Socrates thought that nobody knowingly did wrong. Bad judgment and bad actions were simply mistakes about what is truly good. Pretty much everybody since, starting with Aristotle, realized that even the best judgment can be clouded by strong feelings and conflicting desires.
Scattered attention and divided will creates a gap between what I judge best to do and what I am going to do anyway.
You’d best believe that this problem of motivation applies to goals we don’t usually consider as moral goals, too.
Why take care of my health? Why keep my body in good shape? Why eat well and not eat bad foods that taste good? Why train, even knowing that our bodies rot away without regular physical activity?
You can’t make people care. That’s the rock-hard truth.
All the lecturing, preaching, scolding, finger-wagging, educating, and guilt-tripping in the whole universe cannot make a person care.
If anything, using force to compel belief will create the opposite reaction. Arguing with people with FACTS and LOGIC gets cheers from the fans in the home seats. Anybody not already convinced will dig in deeper and get mad at you.
Great job.
What you can do is influence. Lead by example. Inspire with stories that create a powerful vision in the imagination of the reader.
That’s how I think about it, anyway.
Don’t force. Show a different possibility and allow them to make their own decision.
On that note:
My thinking is moving away from fitness advice and more toward the philosophy and psychology of changing behaviors to keep our lives happy and thriving as we get older.
If you’re interested in that, make sure you’re getting my delicious goodies in your inbox.
Matt Perryman