this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2025
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Like FlakesBongler, I would say a lot of what made me more comfortable expressing myself was the gym. Not quite for the same reasons though.
Working out pushes you toward discomfort, because that's where real change in the body happens. When you are regularly testing and pushing yourself past your physical boundaries, the mental benefits are really under-reported. You know yourself very well after regularly working out.
Plus, the discomfort of hundreds of pounds on your shoulders as you do squats is much greater than the discomfort of someone knowing you're a communist most of the time.
Relatedly, once you've ground yourself to dust by doing 200 kettlebell snatches in 10 minutes, you may find that whether or not someone knows you're a communist isn't the release valve you thought it was. It doesn't matter as much. Your anxiety takes on a different role in your mind.
When I was younger and not working out, I often fell into that whole "there's someone wrong on the internet" mentality. Part of me no longer being like that is maturing, I'm sure, but that maturity has to come from somewhere and I think doing as many pull-ups as possible with a 40-lbs weight vest on is honestly part of that.
Surviving all that builds confidence too. You know what it's like, as Vince Lombardi is often credited with saying, to reach "any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious."
You can probably get this type of feeling, experience and growth from other activities. Like gardening or painting. There's a lot of ways you can channel this sort of primal part of the brain. But for me as a traditional masculine guy, lifting was it.