I rang in the New Year, kissed it in, counted it down, to the ticking of some drunk stranger's atomic clock on his cell. There we were, a cluster of college coeds, 4-3-2-1ing to...a smart phone. The party could have watched the ball drop, but the TV was hooked up to an iPod and the music had been playing for hours. I had been checking my own smart phone for the past hour, approaching random party-goers, "You have 22 minutes left in 2010...what are you going to do?" My good friend Katie told me that in her last few minutes, she was going to take a shot with me. Needless to say, I also brought in the New Year with plenty of calories in the deceiving clear packaging of gin and Sprite (we had exhausted the supply of Sprite Zero. Sad). However. I had a good time, even if I did feel as if I was going to loose it over my egg white omelet the next morning.
Yet the way in which it happened, this first hour of January 1, 2011, seemed poetic, if not perfectly progressive. Over the years, generations have watched the second hand complete a significant last circle and, later, have watched the ball drop, televised from Times Square in New York City. By yet another force of progression, we were linked by a hand-held, multi-use device to the Atomic Clock, the "official US time." Celebrating the New Year is nothing near "new," but the way people over time have used their resources to detect those first moments is a perfect example of why staying, becoming, and existing "healthy" in this technological age seems so utterly difficult.
The routines remain consistent - we still celebrate 12:00 AM and must "eat right and get regular exercise" in order to be healthy - yet the evolving and, I'm going to use editorial quotation marks here, "progressive" culture surrounding such routines seem to strip them of their most important, primitive elements. We have all this fancy gym equipment: ellipticals, stairmasters, stationary bikes, treadmills... all designed to integrate a characteristically American hate, exercise, with an equally fervent American love, technology. The promise here is. then, on some level what it is with that deck of cards-sized jukebox/telephone/personal computer/gaming device: it is technology and it is therefore making life easier... and more work-free.
Well, guess what, WiiFit: the sweating still happens. And once it starts, most of us stop. I did for years.
I love it when cultural staples such as technology, fast food, or capitalism join in with other sought-after American values, yet things we're not willing to work for. Health. The perfect body. (What's that?) My brand new smart phone connects to the Droid market, which allows me to calculate Weight Watchers PointsPlus values on a touch-screen. Subway is my go-to healthy quick-fix and though I have committed to never eating McDonald's again, I could find low-calorie options there fairly easy. MTV Cribs and other shows like it boast home gyms, expressing falsely how acquiring money keys one into The Secret Society of Good Health.
This guy... God.
But as easy as cultural evolution claims to make it for us commoners to lose and maintain weight, it's still one of the hardest things in the world to do: make the right choices. Because where there is one ray of sunshine, it's raining everywhere else. I'm a perfect person to say: it really doesn't get easier, either. The temptations of sloth and gluttony seem to have been magnified by the ever-building "easy access" America, even if this new America claims to just as readily provide resources for healthy living.
I'd really rather sit on my ass eating dinner watching The Biggest Loser than get up and be one myself. I think that's pretty standard.
This morning on January 5th, I am thirteen apples and 10.2 miles in and I'm sorry, Millennium, but until you plant apple trees on every corner and multiple parks in every city, I will consider myself partially devoid of the promised "Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness." I appreciate technology and cultural growth, for it's what I use, study, and love, but it's chalk-full of myths.
No matter how many robots we have, 2011, hard work is still required. And, frankly, though it's sometimes painful to admit it, effort is typically what gives life its value (not iPads or Treadclimbers). After all, isn't the American Dream originally based on the Bootstrap Theory, anyway? Sweat your way there!
This posted from my MacBook on wireless.
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