Ok people. I’m going to give you some advice that should be given to everyone once they reach the age of comprehension. Swing your arms when you freakin’ walk! I was driving to work recently and I saw a jogger who, I can only assume, was concentrating intently on holding his arms straight down by his sides while he ran. This has got to be one of the most awkward looking things that you can do as a human being, second only to being a thirteen year old boy trying to talk to an attractive female. In any case, this particular symptom of self consciousness does not make you look any less self consciousness. On the contrary, it makes you look like you have some sort of undiagnosed joint disorder, or perhaps a fierce desire to be chosen last for flag football. I tried to imagine what was going on in this guy’s head when he ran. Here’s the internal monologue as I see it.
Asshole’s Id: “Yeah! Let’s get our run on!”
Asshole’s Ego: “Whoa there guy. We want to look cool. Let’s take it in a notch.”
Asshole’s Id: “But it feels natural and good to swing my arms. Screw what people think!”
Asshole’s Ego: “I’ll look out of control and crazy. I’m clamping down!!!”
Asshole’s Superego: “Damn you Ego! Stay away from your mother or I’ll cut off your penis!”
(Isn’t Freud awesome?) How can you expect a guy to run with all that going on up there? I almost feel bad for the guy.
Anyway, moving back towards the original premise. Presumably the goal of all self-conscious behavior is to portray oneself as being unself-conscious, to “act cool”. (Unselfconscious? Un-selfconscious? U-nselfc-onscious? Behold… the beauty of the hyphen.) This is one of those times when our bodies are determined to make us look like assholes. The harder you try to appear casual the more absolutely uncomfortable you look. I think ultimately trying to do things gets in the way of actually doing them, at least on the level of coordinated physical activity. On one side of the spectrum you have our Frankenstein monster of a jogger, and on the other Vince Young. Guess which one can spell coordinated? On the other hand… maybe some people just run like jackasses.
1 comment:
So, one of the people in my grad school who had a side job writing for the Economist probably gave me the most right on description of myself I've ever heard. She said simply "you are a walking Id." So there's that, and my girlfriend's "its really like dating someone with a handicap" Oddly enough, I think both are incredibly accurate
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