Man of La Mancha motivation

Admittedly, I never did watch an episode of Pinky and the Brain--largely because cable TV wasn't high on the list of spending priorities through most of its run. But I've always been charmed down to the toenails by the eternal optimism of the cartoon's opening dialogue:

Pinky: "Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?"
Brain: "The same thing we do every night, Pinky--try to take over the world."

Naturally, if we woke to find ourselves subjugated by two lab mice, I think we'd actually be less horrified than we would be absolutely crushed at the story being over. It would be almost--almost!--as devastating being invited over to Wile E. Coyote's house for Thanksgiving and finding stuffed Roadrunner as the main course. (Admit it: You'd mortally freak out. You would.)

But there's something to be said for dreaming the impossible dream, in tonight's case being a return to the gym, tilting at the windmill that is over a decade's worth of desk jobs, plus no great love of physical activity that doesn't have an ulterior motive...such as trying not to become the target of the paintball graffiti artist lurking behind the next tree.

Yet being the least fit person at the gym is kind of liberating, in the same sense that it can be liberating to be the least informed person at a meeting. In both cases, all you have to compete against are your own limitations. Temporary, mutable limitations that will be pushed further and further to the perimeter as the heart-rate stays at higher numbers for more consecutive minutes each week. And the number of reps as well as weights inches up from month to month. And the ankle that was severely twisted less month (and the knee that had to take up the slack) takes the stress with less griping. And, most importantly, the gym-mates become as familiar as the equipment, you understand at a truly subcutaneous level how much willpower and time trumps magic berry diets or whatever the snake oil du jour happens to be.

Granted, I seem to be a magnet for hand-me-down t-shirts, but finding a brand-new Pinky and the Brain t-shirt on the internet wouldn't be the worst purchase I've made. After all, walking or biking in place isn't that much different from running in a wheel, something that rodents do quite proficiently. Perhaps even with the understanding that the value of the journey has zero to do with the proximity of Point A to Point B.