He Ain’t Heavy…
What do kettlebells have to do with racism? As far as I know, absolutely nothing. Having said that, here’s how my mind put them together.
I have been thinking about racism for as long as I have had any awareness of it. I could have said…for as long as I have known what it was, but that is an ever shifting basis. If I could go back and have a conversation with myself at 5 years of age, 10 years of age, 15 years of age, or even 45 years of age, I could teach myself quite a bit about what I have learned. As I understand it now, it is not at all what I thought at 45, to say nothing of what I imagined as a child.
I grew up in the era of public school bussing. And while my experience did not involve bussing personally, the ethos of that particular issue informed my formative years. To boil it down to something very simple, the idea that familiarity and, well, “integration” would fix…it, was the reigning principle. A lot of things came out of that approach, but fixing the notion that people would change how they view outsiders wasn’t one of them.
Having now achieved ‘level six’, I reflect on how I thought about the issue when I was about 45 years of age, and I see differences. First, I have come to understand that it is not about who you know. We all ‘have a friend…’. That ain’t it. The issue that really plagues the world comes from the top down. It is a power game rather than a social activity. How we treat those we know is highly important, but it does not affect the larger issue in any real way. There is almost no connection.
The funny thing with aging is that we, hopefully, begin to see the record of connections that we have made. The way our minds work, we arrange facts, find parallels, and move forward…hopefully with understanding. We begin to use shorthand, and take shortcuts because we have seen it fifty, a hundred, or thousands of times before. We ask fewer questions and begin to plug in values because we are busy…and tired.
That’s where the kettlebells come in. I’ve been working with those bastards for about two years now. I can’t stand when I see them coming. It is never pleasant. The way they come to me is in the hands of my trainer. I go to the gym where I have an appointment with him, and he sets them up. This usually comes around minute 45 of a 60 minute workout. We go into a room where there is a carpet of artificial turf, and he has arranged 4 kettlebells. The last appointment had KBs of 40, 50, 60, and 70 pounds in a row. Mind you, this is after being already soaking wet with perspiration from lifting weights in other rooms. I’m tired and I have abused my muscles with microtears which will be genuine pain within 24 hours. At this point it is just glycogen depletion and exhaustion. My limbs feel like cargo rather than the tools to help me with the cargo.
And at this point, your mind does funny things. You start seeking shortcuts and shorthand. The thing of it is, when attempting difficult physical maneuvers, shortcuts are dangerous. Discipline is a must. Injury comes from doing it wrong. Success in acquiring the benefit of the exercise comes from doing it properly. This is where the trainer really comes in. He can watch like a hawk, and demand that I stay within the proper technique. As I master the technique, he demands that I go faster, longer, and even heavier.
It is very difficult to explain the mental breakdown because this requires lucidity, but were it not for the threat of immediate physical injury, the motion would either be abandoned or some self harm would occur. After running up and back and lifting these damned hunks of metal, it would take some effort to tell you my middle name. There is a real brain fog. It takes everything my mind can muster to think, “head up”, “shoulders back”, “up not out”, “slight knee bend”, “load the quads”, “from the heels”…etc. After completing one, there is only 39 more. Just hearing that number can cause you to want to collapse.
And that is what contemplations of racism feels like at 60 relative to any earlier time in my life. The ‘not this shit again’ takes you to a ‘not today’ place instantly.
The day after Thanksgiving, I got a call from ‘Uncle MAGA’…77 years of age. He wanted me to watch a new film about the George Floyd arrest. He said he wanted my “expert opinion”. I made it all the way through Thanksgiving dinner without a hint of this, and then it catches me a day later.
So, when his voicemail popped up, I asked my wife to say that I was on my way to the gym, which I was, and I’d get back to him in a few hours. Once I had watched the film of an hour and 45 minutes, I wrote him an email about my view, with a minute by minute analysis. Once I had, he just responded, “I disagree.”
He didn’t want my opinion. He wanted a validation of his own. I stewed while writing my opinion. I stewed while watching the film. And I stewed for several days afterward. I may still be stewing. The idea providing the heat to my stew was, “how could he think I would find this acceptable?” “How does he not know that this is insulting?” Uncle MAGA is a good man, and a smart man. He just also happens to be one who is attracted to conspiracy theories. There are new ones re: George Floyd which I don’t even think merit a detailed mention, but there it is.
I do not understand how he could think I would accept his view of what I observed of that televised murder. I don’t get how he can’t see that police officers like Derek Chauvin are threats to people like me, and to the general peace. My mind is ready to explode when I see that subject coming toward me. It is really quite clear, and it is so, so heavy. But there it is. Shall I avoid him at Christmas dinner in a couple of weeks. My worry was that if he raises the question, I will tell him exactly how I feel, so I would rather not. And if he doesn’t raise the question…that must mean something else that I can’t grok. This is one heavy kettlebell and I really do not want to do it. My wife says I will, though.
I know that Uncle MAGA is a good man, and that he loves me. I could do the shorthand and believe that he doesn’t. I’d be wrong.
12/14/2023 @ 1:16 am
It is unreasonable to expect the people you love to be always right. It is unfortunately also unreasonable to expect them to be smart, at least by your standards. It is unfortunately completely unreasonable to expect them to value objectivity highly. And, lastly (?), it is unreasonable to expect them to be more afraid of being wrong than of looking wrong.
12/14/2023 @ 9:13 am
“Once I had watched the film of an hour and 45 minutes, I wrote him an email about my view, with a minute by minute analysis. Once I had, he just responded, “I disagree.”
Of course you did, exactly as he knew you would.
So I have zero experience lifting weights because I can see they would kill me instantly, but I’d point out that uncle is playing a game that you can play back differently. Send him a link to something you know will prickle him, then suggest you discuss both articles or vids together. I’ll put ten dollars on that he won’t read your article and that he won’t try that again.
Lol, you’re welcome 🙂
12/14/2023 @ 6:41 pm
This is funny. I have thought of this many times. Sadly, I already know this wouldn’t work. Here’s why.
Uncle MAGA is a millionaire many times over. He is currently working his first job out of college…about 58 years. He’s a corner office stock broker at the same firm that hired him after graduating with a 4.0 in finance from Wisconsin. He’s the former president of his fraternity. He has more club memberships than I have skin cells. He golfs…all over the world. He attends every Super Bowl. He’s constantly on the move, and he’s 77 or 78. Not retired. The one thing he does not do…is read. That dude wouldn’t turn a page if there were money under it.
He’s a very smart man, but his prefrontal cortex is as smooth as a billiard ball. He contemplates nothing complicated. Life is a smooth, pleasantly scented, softly spoken piece of pastry that he consumes for every meal. Life is a smile, a handshake, a back slap, a Monte Cristo cigar, and denial of complexity in anyone else’s life. I showed him a video of George W. Bush once, doing something stupid and hilarious. He turned red as his head swelled to 12 times its normal size…and he didn’t say a word.
12/15/2023 @ 8:26 am
Omg. This description of your uncle. It should run in the New Yorker.
It’s also 100% accurate for these guys. My dad, a bank exec who invested (I’m sure with insider info), retired more than comfortably. Although when I was growing up, there were no housekeepers or golf club memberships, and he drove the same old car inherited from my grandfather for twenty years, he and my mother enjoyed their Republican money, esp at the end. He’d prolly have had plenty to say over good scotch with your uncle.
After my mom died, my dad and I developed a completely different relationship without her running interference. He’d tell me stuff, and ask me stuff. He started dating and I was the first person he told. He knew my sister would freak, but I had the reputation for being ‘loose’. We’d have breakfast at a local coffee shop on Sunday mornings, and share the NYTimes. Once, he started to talk GOP about something in the paper, and I said “Dad, I love you and want to spend our time together enjoying each other. Talking about politics, we never enjoy one another”. We never talked politics again. Seriously, never.
Maybe next time uncle sends you something flammable, send him back a cigar. Hope you enjoy this Uncle, Love, Bitey!
P.S. what is this Georg Floyd viral thing? Someone else referred to it yesterday.
12/15/2023 @ 8:35 am
Someone has created a documentary about the George Floyd arrest. The point of it is to reveal the ‘real story’ of how Derek Chauvin is being railroaded “by the politicians”…etc. It mentions (shows) things like Floyd mentioning that he “just lost his mom”, and then the narrator explains that his mom died 2 years prior. It shows that he said, “I can’t breathe”, before he was actually handcuffed. It has lots and lots of other gotcha nonsense like that, which are meant to persuade you that Floyd was dangerous, guilty, and not killed by Chauvin. It’s pure garbage. (All apologies to actual garbage). It is 105 minutes of bullshit like that, with alarming, ominous music.
12/15/2023 @ 9:38 am
Jeesus. Well thanks for the summary, so I won’t be tempted to suffer through that.
Who was it that said maga cruelty is the point. This is another example.
I was listening on the car radio yesterday to someone discussing the cruelty of Trump trying to get dirt on Hunter Biden from Zelenskyy, knowing that Biden had decided not to run for president against Trump the first time because he was grieving his dead son. The speaker was saying they thought Trump’s agenda with Zelenskyy was to gather enough dirt on his remaining son to make Biden decide not to run against him again.
That, and Giuliani and the election workers….grrrrr. My cup of schadenfreude will taste so good when the verdict comes in on that.