Cassandra Gill

Honors Humanities Seminar

Dr. Rosenfeld / Dr. Lacey

29 April 2015

Treadmills

Treadmills: one cannot find a more prevalent illustration of just how disconnected man

has become from his nature – both from his body, his mind, and his interactions with the

environment around him. Even when the weather is perfectly fine, man prefers the artificial

simulation of running over the pure, original, free-flowing act. The phenomenon of mass indoor

treadmill usage is the result of a culture looking to pave its own manmade path and separate

itself from its primordial ties. Forging a more refined way, the civilized urban world looks to

sever its connections to its barbaric, wild roots, and fails to recognize its need to embrace the

natural chaos.

In the modern world, it appears as if man has conquered nature. The need to perform

hard, intensive manual labor is no longer essential to existence and not a part of life in the

industrialized developed world. The most movement we need to perform is limited to the shifting

our fingers on a keyboard short and short bits of walking from seat to the next. We have the

luxury of not having to work our bodies for the entire day aside from that brief workout at the

gym that day.

Alienated from much of our bodies most of the day, we see that full movement of our

bodies through space as dreadful drudgery when we step onto the treadmill. The fact that this

dull, hard, drab gray and black structure was originally created to punish prisoners sentenced to

hard labor seems fitting. As we crank the speed of conveyor up and start to run, a mechanical

sound becomes increasingly louder as we procede to plod along. We find our bodies confined to

a small area to move as there rails at our sides and in front us; the bars box us in even further and

restrict our stride. In response, our hamstrings are shortened; weight is pressed more heavily on

our quads; we land on our heels instead of the balls of feet; and put more pressure on our knees.

Rather than having our feet springing up and cooperating with gravity, we pull our feet up

ourselves and wear elevated, overly-cushioned, fancy shoes. We push forward thinking the pain

from the sore knees, fiery calves, and muscles cramps is normal and fail to recognize that this is

simply the result of struggle against the natural world. We fail to hear the message our tight

muscles and distressing cramps are our bodies are screaming out to us because we have a built a

wall between us and our bodies. While our bodies should be able to support the load of our

weight, they fail because they are unable to hold up both our ancient biological structures and

our modern lifestyle; they cannot stay sitting all day in one fixed position and then be expected

to work efficiently through fluid, constant movement. Ignorant of the meaning of the signs, we

beat on and punish our bodies for “eating too much” or not looking a certain way. We tell the

machine to impose a strict, unforgiving pace on our legs looking for variety; we estrange

ourselves from our bodies because of our need to repress our own biological nature.

Constrained and confined to that small space in the gym, we cut off connection from our

inner nature as well. To cope with such a “monotonous and boring” workout, our minds must

become numb to in order get through the run effectively. We stare at the television screen in

front of us and keep checking the dash every thirty seconds to see if the time has magically

passed much more quickly. Since we cannot enjoy the journey on that mechanical machine

literally going nowhere, our attention becomes distorted to caring only about the outcome of the

run. The reason that that numbers on the dash are the placed on the focal visual point of the

treadmill becomes clear. We become driven towards the results the machine calculates; we

reduce ourselves and our experiences to numbers. Like the Marxist caricature of the capitalist

caring only about the bottom line at the expense of his workers, we place value only on miles

logged on the running belt at the cost of our minds being dulled. The effect of the system on the

individual being toward the brink of mental exhaustion is negligible. Like schools caring only

about the results of a standardized test, our measurable output of calories is all that matters, and

so we obsess over that last red digit. In exchange for extra calories, we give up our minds to

technology.

Unoriginal and unimaginative, the design of the “boredom belt” is about the same

wherever we go and has not changed much over time. The experience of one treadmill to the

next is uniformly the same. If it’s too hot or too cold outside, we need not worry because the

treadmill is in a perfectly temperature controlled room temperature. Our runs can carry on at an

exact pace without an obstacle ever separating our feet from a direct, flat, predictable landing on

the moving belt. We do not need to learn how to survive in the environment naturally, and since

we can always manipulate it artificially. We fail to see any value in interacting with the outside

world, and disconnect ourselves from it. We place mankind in its own category and no longer

experience the environment we have always lived in up until the last hundred years or so.

Urbanization has made it possible for us to avoid having to interact with the world

entirely. A fifteen inch screen in front of us makes it possible to run through the woods without

getting an ounce of dirt on our legs. We can run up the Andes Mountains without ever having to

leave our town. We can create manmade simulation for anything we could find in nature.

In trying to control every aspect, we fail to see that out of some chaos, order can be

found. The divots and roots on nature’s paths offer variety to our perspectives and experiences.

The plants and animals heighten our awareness of our surroundings and senses. From taking in

the unique ecosystem up close, we develop a sense of connectedness to other creatures in

creation. Instead of feeling exhausted from a run, we could feel calmness and peace flowing

freely from the fresh air. In our ignorance we believe that man alone holds and knows all the

answers. The simulation of running on a treadmill cannot provide vitamin d and and natural

boost in serotonin from being outside. Our overly padded shoes cannot protect us better than

having strong feet and proper alignment.

Seeing the same sights from the treadmill day after day restrict our views of the world.

Instead of looking within ourselves or toward the earthly environment to solve our natural

problem, we turn to consumerism. We buy into the idea that in order to experience a sense of

relaxation we should set down in front of the T.V. with some snacks and a drink after our

“dreadmill” run. We listen to the marketers and the companies telling us that we have to buy this

or that product in order to feel more relaxed, be happier, or weigh less. We need things to

alleviate the burdens of life. We follow the endlessly rotating cycle promising to bring us

happiness finally this time around. We assimilate to the capitalistic culture and allow the

manufactures to mold our lives.

We listen to the machines and value a workout by the number of calories burned, rather

than by the way it made you feel, the enjoyment it created, and the new connections and

perspectives you formed. While people report feeling more restored, less anxious, and less

depressed spending time outside, the issue is not stressed to society because nobody can make a

profit off of that. We have become dulled and passive and fail to notice this important detail as a

society. We ignore that fact there are inherent flaws in this system which tries to simplify the

complex human practice of running to its basic mechanical aspects. Running in its purest form is

a celebration of our humanity. With elongated legs and lengthened tendons, the human body is

born to run. Our bodies are designed to move through space in an unrestricted variety of ways.

We are not meant to be confined to sitting in one seat all day at school or work. Children love to

run around any chance they get until the system teaches them otherwise. For children embracing

their instincts though, we call them misbehaved in proper civilized society. We suppress our

natural inclination to want to constantly be moving like our ancestors. We have become

complacent, passive pawns of the system. We have gone so far that the most natural activities

our bodies were designed to perform and have always been an integral part of our existence now

feel foreign to us.

This is brilliant and wonderful! You capture Barthes’ tone beautifully here, and apply it to good advantage with very specific insights about the nature of running. You also connect this to capitalism – like Barthes – and to a hidden set of values – the unnatural over the natural – that capitalism enforces. Your observations are particular and persuasive, and you deftly combine analysis and spirited writing. This is an absolute pleasure to read. You knocked it out of the park.

A