THE FLESH CRIES OUT

Bangkok, 21 June 2015

After years of bugging by our children, especially by our daughter, and after watching a couple of our friends Go the Way of All Flesh or nearly so, my wife and I have committed to a serious training regime. Twice a week, a personal trainer turns up at our apartment block, and in the very rudimentary gym which we have (it’s really just a common space where some exercise machines have been installed) he puts us through one hour of rigorous exercises. In addition, my wife goes to a gym every day for an hour, while I do (more or less, depending on my schedule) half an hour’s worth of exercises at home in the evening. We’ve been at it for three and a half months.

I don’t know, I feel that after a suitable period of shock at the beginning – we have, to be very, very frank, done bugger-all exercise for nigh on forty years – we should now be looking forward to going to our twice-weekly routine and feel happy after it

perhaps not as blissfully happy as this couple, but at least somewhat satisfied.

Yet it is not so. As we go down to the makeshift gym we feel like what those poor people in Singapore must feel like as they go to get 100 lashes for dropping chewing gum on the pavement or whatever, and the exercises themselves are still excruciating. We both feel like poor old Laocoön and his sons as we put our protesting bodies through the routines

while when we try to get up from a floor exercise we both look and feel like this dying Gaul

Understand me, I’m not hoping to look like Hercules by the end of all this

Something like this would do me very nicely

while my wife would be more than happy to end up looking like any of these three Graces

In fact, to be completely honest, I wouldn’t mind ending up looking like this as long as I was feeling good.

But I don’t feel good, I just feel like this at the end of the one hour

and continue to feel like this for the rest of the day.

Will it ever be different?

_____________

Happy exercisers: https://experiencelife.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Apr10_ExGorg1.jpg (in https://experiencelife.com/article/8-ways-exercise-makes-you-gorgeous/)
Laocoön: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/bf/aa/24/bfaa2441e5e25a8ec7be0f9fb81db7dd.jpg (in https://www.pinterest.com/heotang/the-death/)
Dying Gaul: http://anadio.com/004b%20Ancient%20Greek%20sculpture%20web%20ss/resources/images/medium/Dying_gaul.jpg (in http://anadio.com/004b%20Ancient%20Greek%20sculpture%20web%20ss/index.html)
Herakles: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Herakles_Farnese_MAN_Napoli_Inv6001_n01.jpg/250px-Herakles_Farnese_MAN_Napoli_Inv6001_n01.jpg (in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnese_Hercules)
God: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/culture_test/100ideasart_2.jpg (in http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/10/from-greek-sculpture-to-graffiti-100-ideas-that-changed-art/264165/)
Three Graces: http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Mythology/Images/ThreeGracesLouvreMa287.jpg (in http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Mythology/ThreeGracesLouvreMa287.html)
Fat David: http://www.clevelandseniors.com/images/funny/fat-david.jpg (in http://bellasvitas.blogspot.com/2011/03/michael-angelo-sculptures.html)
Broken sculpture: http://www.visualtherapyonline.com/wp-content/uploads/banksy-fallen-sculpture-1.jpg (in http://www.visualtherapyonline.com/?p=20403)

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Abellio

I like writing, but I’ve spent most of my life writing about things that don’t particularly interest me. Finally, as I neared the age of 60, I decided to change that. I wanted to write about things that interested me. What really interests me is beauty. So I’ve focused this blog on beautiful things. I could be writing about a formally beautiful object in a museum. But it could also be something sitting quietly on a shelf. Or it could be just a fleeting view that's caught my eye, or a momentary splash of colour-on-colour at the turn of the road. Or it could be a piece of music I've just heard. Or a piece of poetry. Or food. And I’m sure I’ve missed things. But I’ll also write about interesting things that I hear or read about. Isn't there a beauty about things pleasing to the mind? I started just writing, but my wife quickly persuaded me to include photos. I tried it and I liked it. So my posts are now a mix of words and pictures, most of which I find on the internet. What else about me? When I first started this blog, my wife and I lived in Beijing where I was head of the regional office of the UN Agency I worked for. So at the beginning I wrote a lot about things Chinese. Then we moved to Bangkok, where again I headed up my Agency's regional office. So for a period I wrote about Thailand and South-East Asia more generally. But we had lived in Austria for many years before moving to China, and anyway we both come from Europe my wife is Italian while I'm half English, half French - so I often write about things European. Now I'm retired and we've moved back to Europe, so I suppose I will be writing a lot more about the Old Continent, interspersed with posts we have gone to visit. What else? We have two grown children, who had already left the nest when we moved to China, but they still figure from time to time in my posts. I’ll let my readers figure out more about me from reading what I've written. As these readers will discover, I really like trees. So I chose a tree - an apple tree, painted by the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt - as my gravatar. And I chose Abellio as my name because he is the Celtic God of the apple tree. I hope you enjoy my posts. http://ipaintingsforsale.com/UploadPic/Gustav Klimt/big/Apple Tree I.jpg View all posts by Abellio

6 thoughts on “THE FLESH CRIES OUT”

Pingback: RETIREMENT HERE WE COME! | the heart thrills

Exercise only feels that way when you don’t know the movements. As well as when you slouch during your movements. The breaths of air are not easy this way. If you go into it happy it will feel great. About the feeling tired afterwards, I only feel that way after cardio not strength training. Know your options.

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Abellio says:

January 10, 2017 at 00:42

Kenneth, thanks for the comment! The exercises certainly got better as we got more into it. That post was written at the low point when we started! Unfortunately, because we moved we stopped our exercise regime. Now we really need to get back to it – it’s one of our new year resolutions.

Thanks again!

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