Fitness Centres Fill The Void

Photo: Nonqaba waka Msimang.
Roughly, there are two main reasons that drive us to the gym, to lift those weights, pretend to be kickboxers, lay down yoga mats, pound the treadmill and take laps in the heated indoor swimming pool.

The first reason is the desire to be healthy, because the heart is not a donkey.  It does not want to be overloaded with stuff and we also don’t want to gain such a lot of weight that we buy a car to accommodate the bulk, cannot walk up a flight of stairs or go through a normal door. 
Filling a personal void is the other one, more private, which we do not divulge to the sweating bodies around us.  The void is our destination after the gym, exacerbated by celebrations like Christmas, the biggest advertisement of a ‘happy home’.

The family is supposed to be the antibiotic for job stress and rude train passengers.  It is perceived as a garden of smiles that illuminates our hearts and listens to our litany of complaints about the outside world. 
That is why the most painful void is the mausoleum of silence at breakfast and dinner.  It makes gym members appreciate music that accompany the lunges, the weightlifting and power rides on stationary bicycles.  

Chit chat in the changing room among long term members also soothe the empty soul.  I’m alive.  I hear voices, human contact.  People are talking about early snow, their summer, ageing parents that refuse to take their medication, grandchildren and kids that bought them gym membership.
Making friends or finding someone with the same void is a long shot, bearing in mind the prevalence of cellphones in the weight room and the treadmill.  Most people are the Y chromosome (headphones hanging like a Y).

Aristocrats in ancient England had no problem finding friends in gentlemen’s clubs because they were joined at the hip by class.  The corner pub was, and still is, the alternative for working class folks to take a break from home.  There is no class to bind members in fitness centres.  They are a mixed bag of nuts.  There is no guarantee that you will find a kindred spirit, with a similar void.
In some cases, emotionally injured people go to the gym to fix what caused the void in the first place, spouses that avoid them like the plague because they are overweight.  There might be other unsaid reasons.
You will work it out whatever they are, because you feel the void.  Gyms are for working out, aren’t they?

By:  Nonqaba waka Msimang.

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