Category: flaws of western culture

If there is money at work to sculpt this, I have not found it.  But there is a strand of western culture that is creeping up on my scoundrel nerve.  You see, I have been exercising regularly for about four years now.  Treadmill and various sports...sometimes, but mostly lifting weights these days.  As you might guess, I am in pretty good shape as a result.  But I am never going to be hyper-muscular like some of the regulars at the gym.  When I see a guy of about 19 or 20 with ripped guns, my gut reaction is typically one of respect.  This is a guy who works hard when he is at the gym, closely watches his diet, and has stuck with it for years.

What? Years? Four days a week since he was what, 12?

Please.  After looking into this and asking lots of questions, I know that just about every guy of that size is using steroids heavily.  There is literature on this.  I have my own experiences with muscle growth to draw from, and those of some close friends.  And in some cases, the big guys themselves have told me that this is the case.  What gets me though, is that I still initially react that same way even though I know that these are people who have chosen to screw up their body chemistry to pursue this look.  It is dangerous, and some of these guys are going to die young from this decision.  It speaks about a certain degree of personality flaw that a person is willing to do this.  The problem is that our society does not condemn guys for making this choice.  We revere them.  Our culture has largely turned a blind eye to this issue.  There is a ceiling preventing me from ever achieving the kind of look that I am being told I should aspire to unless I am willing to take steroids myself.  I was feeling cooked about this until a friend of mine mentioned that women have been dealing with this for years with airbrushed beauty magazine covers, plastic surgery, and runway models who are chosen not because they are typical of who the clothes are designed for, but because the clothing looks better on a waif than on a normal person.

As a side note, I take every opportunity to insert a notion in my kids that the people they see on television are not appropriate role models when it comes to looks.  I hope that it is brewing in their heads right next to "advertisements are lies that only exist to trick you out of your money" and "politicians have to be disingenous, duplicitous invertibrates to get jobs".  Well, not in those words, but you know what I mean.