A look in the mirror

I had an interesting experience about a week ago. I recently started going to the gym again. Three times a week I do strength training and twice a week I run on the treadmill. This particular day was a running day and I wound up going a little after 10 pm.

Usually I prefer to run on an indoor track, but we don't really have that here. I used to run around the fieldhouse, which was decent, but the temporary gym is located very close to my apartment so it's really convenient to just run there (they're renovating the actual gym).

The way the temporary gym is set up is that the treadmills look out the window, which is a big improvement on the storage closet they used to be in before they started renovating the fieldhouse (not an exaggeration by the way, they treadmills were actually in a room designed to be a storage closet). This particular day it was dark out by the time I started running, so instead of looking out the window I spent the whole run looking directly at my reflection in the window.

It was a very interesting experience. I've never seen myself run before, and for that matter I don't really ever see myself when I'm going about my day. Really the only time I ever look in a mirror is when I'm combing my hair or shaving, so only for about two minutes a day (electric shaver for the win). I don't even really particularly have a "mental picture" of myself, I mean I know what I look like but I don't spend time thinking about it.

One thing that was interesting was seeing myself with a beard. I've had a beard for a little over two months now, and I'd never had facial hair before in my life. No mustache (yet), just a beard. I think it works decently well for me, definitely worth trying out. I will be doing No-Shave November for the first time in my life next month, so we'll see how the mustache comes in. I may wind up deciding to shave everything off come December.

Another interesting thing was how intense I am when I run. Wifey doesn't understand how I only listen to "angry music" when I run (there are some more positive songs on my playlist, but not many). Angry music just motivates me better! This may possibly mean I'm psychotic, but at least I know myself. Anyway, my face while running ranged from 'serious' to 'totally hardcore' to the occasional 'raging'. I wonder if I scare other people in the gym.

The thing that was most interesting about the experience was realizing that I am noticeably overweight. It's not really something that I think about a lot, but my face clearly shows the extra chubbiness that I'm carrying around. My weight is currently about 205, which has pretty much been the norm for most of my adult life. The only time I really got in decent shape was right before I started dating wifey when I was thinking about joining the air force. I got down to about 178 or so at the time, but after I passed my physical my motivation started to slide. The motivation really took a nosedive when I decided not to join the military.

I have a much better reason now to get in shape. Exercising and losing weight could help us with our infertility. It's certainly not guaranteed to help us, but it's enough of a reason that I should be able to maintain my motivation a little better. Leading a more physically disciplined life will also hopefully help me become more spiritually disciplined, something I definitely need to work more on. It comes down to a matter of willpower until it becomes routine. I'm hoping to stay on track for a good long while this time, or maybe even staying physically fit for good.

Ramblings of a rambler

I came up with the title of my blog (Ramblings of an interested party) after Wifey read the first couple of posts and mentioned that I basically just ramble a lot. I decided to own that and put it in the title (a big improvement on my first title, "Catchy title that makes me sound really insightful", or something like that). This particular post will be even more rambling than usual!

I was thinking earlier on some of the reasons why I'm blogging. It has kind of lost its novelty at this point (to be expected), but I am definitely committed to keeping at it. One reason is that I find it rather therapeutic. I've never been much of a writer. I hate writing papers, my diary had two entries in it growing up, and I never moved forward with the idea I had once in college for a Young Adult series. But this experience of blogging has been rather enjoyable, I'm not quite sure why.

I have had to curtail my expectations of other's enjoyment of the blog. Part of me yearns to be regarded as some sort of sage, to be lauded for my intelligence and keen insights. That's not going to happen. I don't have the discipline to become one of those full-time bloggers or people who turn their blog into a book. And that's fine! In the end, I blog for me. As long as I'm blogging for my own benefit, it won't be a disappointment when I don't get readers or a post sucks (a few of them have).

The biggest benefit I'm getting is engaging my mind. When I was growing up I read like crazy. My mom had to force me to go play outside because I was inside reading too much. Sometimes I would just take a book outside and go sit in a tree to read. As I've gotten older I find that I don't take the time to read as much. One of the reasons is probably the internet. Now that I can read endlessly on various interests I don't take the time to discover new interests and new worlds in fiction. That's a shame really. Writing has forced me to actually think about things instead of just looking for entertainment or information.

One thing I have to keep an eye on is my amount of negativity. It is so easy to always tear down without building up. It is certainly my tendency to point out problems more than offering solutions. I do believe that pointing out problems is good and necessary, but I don't want it to become a crutch to take the place of solution-based critical thinking.

So far I'm quite happy with this experience. Next on the list of learning to blog is going to be blogging about topics I thought of days or weeks before. My M.O. has been to blog about whatever is currently on my mind, hence why some posts (like this one) are a little more out there and unfocused. Topic ideas are certainly welcome if there's something you'd like to hear my thoughts on. Time to tackle some interesting subjects!