Today's people exercise

Exercise is weird to me. It doesn't come natural. I know that my experience does not encompass that of everyone on earth right now, but amongst the vast majority of people that I know and come in contact with on a regular basis, physical exertion is not naturally a part of a daily routine. It can be worked into a daily routine, but as its own thing, not as a side affect of some other activity, such as work. Many people, including myself, work sit-down type jobs in sit-down type places and we bitch like angry poodles if the AC isn't working right. If we want to work our bodies, we have to make time for it somewhere in the middle of everything else....which I guess isn't necessarily a bad thing, since it makes exercise into personal time, when one can take time out from their routine and focus on one's body, and perhaps even on some other aspects of the self.

But still, exercise just doesn't come naturally to me. The concept of working out seems foreign. It feels weird to me to do an activity for the sole purpose of exerting my body and making it healthier....I have this idea in my head that I should be doing something else at the same time, like learning something or getting somewhere. I used to do Krav Maga because I felt like I was learning something (ie, various shit-beating-out-of techniques) at the same time that I was working out. And I enjoyed the hell out of it, not just the fighting, but the sense that I was getting in touch with something a bit more primal, something at the core. Of course it was all very controlled, we weren't fighting bareknuckled in dark basements. I only quit doing it because the class schedule sucked and I couldn't justify the expense any more. So today during lunch, I went over to the new gym that's free for employees in my building and gave it a shot. I'm not big on gyms, but it's a small place, not the kind of joint where people go to be seen like they do at your mega-gym warehouses. And even though I felt good about it, it still felt weird. Man, why is that? Perhaps I don't place as much importance on taking care of my physical self as I ought to. I know it has to be done, but I tend to think of exercise as a waste of time, getting in the way of more important pursuits. I could be reading a book or writing a play, dammit! Except today it didn't feel that way, at least not as much as usual, I guess since I was taking time out of my work day. And we all know work is a waste of time.