Subliminalshiver

Re: Comment left on previous post entitled “The Shiny Gym”.

Oh Neotha.

First off.. I work 10 days a month. Which is already too much. Why the rest of the industrialized world hasn’t figured that out yet is beyond me.

My problem is not with gyms, or with people looking to make positive changes in their lives for the “right” reasons, those being fitness, health, self-confidence, ect. I go to the gym all the time for these kinds of reasons- I like to be in good shape so I can do the things I like to outside.

Shiny is not about simply going to the gym or the stupid cardio machines with TV screens or juice bars or any of that other trivial madness.. Shiny is about living in a fantasy world outside reality. I believe that what makes a person truly shiny is their high degree of general oblivion to the true nature of the world. Shiny is a symptom of this oblivion typified most obviously by the upper-class. These are the people who really believe, maybe even just subconsciously, that appearances matter because that is all they are capable of seeing. We can find these symptoms present in the lower-class too…. Perhaps more so, but as is generally obvious, poverty is not pretty at first glance. There are those in poverty who see deeper than economics, who possess enough clarity to understand the dissociation between money and happiness, and these are not in the category we are concerned with today. Conversely, there are those with money who also realize that money is not the source of happiness, that the two are not related.

Shiny people are those who seek, but do not find happiness. Who are confused by their money and cannot understand why their happiness is not proportional. These are people that will never be happy because they continuously look for happiness extrinsically, who never make the self-actualized leap of understanding that happiness comes from within. Shiny people are those who tack on facades of manufactured joy in an attempt to reflect some of it inward.

And why not? Advertising and the media have been telling us this is true since we were born. Why should anyone make the colossal leap of faith that all the shiny people on TV are not perfectly happy thanks to their money? In fact, almost all of advertising is premised on the pretense happiness CAN be bought. What else could possibly be worth selling? If it was widely realized on a deep, visceral level that happiness was produced solely in the human heart and that it could not, in fact, be influenced in any meaningful way by anything bought or sold our economy would collapse completely. Certainly products of subsistence would still be bought and sold. People would still eat and find food and shelter. But all the crap that has no meaning would never move from the shelves.

But, thankfully for the wheels of commerce, this is not widely known. It is encouraged to seek happiness in anything available for sale. There are no commercials to straighten up, stop spending so much money, live within your means, lower your stress and learn to love life for living. But there are commercials for anti-depressant medications for when the bubble breaks and happiness is not delivered by retail. Even then, a lack of happiness is not a persons responsibility, is not expected to be a discipline of the mind, a conditioned response to being alive.

No. Happiness is a by-product of neural chemistry. Eureka! A brilliant supposition because it is marketable! One cannot sell something that everyone is capable of producing or obtaining themselves.

Pharmaceutical companies are making billions annually because we as a people are convinced that happiness comes from outside and is supposed to shine down on us from the universe; we should all be living lives with lots of cool toys and fancy cars and clothes and should all have the bodies of bronzed roman gods and pretty faces and everyone should love us and everything in the world should align in our favor. And when this doesn’t happen and we wonder why, why, why is life so unfair and mean and why everything isn’t sunny and rosy like the ads told us it was going to be. Even then there is seldom any lightbulb that goes on to suggest that the reason we aren’t happy is because everything we bought was lying to us, and that if we’re not happy without the money we will never be happy with the money. No. This type of radical thinking is discouraged.

And that is my problem with the Shiny people, and what I meant about the Shiny gym. I see lots of un-shiny people where I work out and I have no idea if they “get” it. I see lots of shiny-looking people there too and in truth I do not know individually if they do either. However, for the purposes of demonstration those whom I have coined “Shiny” are the easiest to use for illustration. This is an elitist point of view. I make no apologies for that. I am very lucky to live the mode of life that I do and am provided with a relatively unique perspective from which to cast my judgements.

I do not think that you are Shiny for simply going to a gym, working out, for buying smoothies and drinking them by the pool, for living downtown, for liking the thriving immersion in your community. I especially dislike your use of gender as an excuse, or the assumption that I would think the presence of a “male friend” would ease the situation (as you said “..my neighborhood is not the safest place to be, alone at night as a female. … and finally, why can’t I work out with a male friend?”). C’mon, Neotha…. It’s 2008. You’d have me believe that this could be solved if you just stayed in the kitchen.

This is about the pursuit of happiness. Which is ridiculous. We have no need to pursue happiness. It is within us.

Treadmills with television screens with satellite signals. Rows of them. The juice bar. IMAX theater built right in to the spinning room.
This is a hub for the Shiny People. The Shiny People Gym.
I can't help but to think of the Matrix movies. What a terrific metaphor. The Shiny people see a movie like that and they think there are good action scenes or they don't, think it was a good story or they don't but they never really look at it and think "Oh my god... that's me. I'm in the matrix". But they are plugged right into the Machine just as solidly as if they really were immersed in a vat of goo with wires coming and going from the back of their heads. I see them as they run the little pre-programmed routes on the treadmills. It is some kind of sad irony to see them flicking their wrists to get a glimpse of their heart monitor. I think the treadmills must produce some kind of interference signal that the monitor interprets as a pulse because I am sure that if you actually looked inside their chests one would find a cold, dark, still heart.
There is no outside of box type thought. This gym is just an outlet for the primordial urges that the matrix hasn't figured out how to mitigate. It is a poor surrogate for actually going outside and doing the things that this place is simulating. Spin Bikes. Climbing wall. Stairmaster. Treadmill. I'm pretty sure all these things are available outside with no membership fees. And yet the shiny people come here. Pay hard earned cash to enjoy the elitist sensation of being shiny. And with enough exposure to places like this they forget that the Real thing is even out there. Like POWs that forget English and adopt the language of their captors.
The Shiny Gym is a prison camp. A slave labor factory. Spend money. Be shiny. Look, over there by the eliptical! I think she's shinier than you. You will need to go get some cuter workout clothes and new shoes but on your way to the mall don't forget to stop at the juice bar for that smoothie we're telling you that you're craving. Yeah, it is made from high-fructose corn syrup and contains the caloric value of a steak dinner but go ahead... you earned it. You deserve it. Moreover, you deserve to be way shinier than that bitch. Oh, and you'd better sign up for another pilates class.
By the way, the rest of your life is looking a little dull. Better shine it up too. Gonna need a new car. Ditch that ugly-ass BMW. What's better than a BMW? I dunno but if you're asking that question there is someone that will sell it to you. Your job needs a little polish too. And your home. Better be big, better be new if you're gonna stay shiny. Shiny is not a one-time purchase. Shiny is a lease agreement. A commitment. Gonna take a lot and there's a lot of interest but it's worth it. Takes a lot of energy to be shiny too. A lot of time and effort studying the journals, People magazine, US weekly and the like. Gotta find out what Britney is up too and which shoes Jessica Simpson is wearing and who is pregnant and who is in rehab. The Uber-Shinies. Celebrities. Our Role Models.
These lives of these people are like the real versions of little model airplanes. The Shinies buy their little model kits and painstakingly apply glue and decals and attention to detail to attempt to capture some aspect of the Real Thing and apply it to their lives.
Which is good. We need more Britneys and Jessicas and Paris'. They contribute so much to our world. If only more young people today would just try to follow their lead. No sense idealizing lame-asses like Albert Schweitzer or Nelson Mandela or Mother Teresa. Definitely not that Shiny.
Inside the matrix the Shinies can't see any of this satire. The world of the Shiny is exactly as big as the Shiny itself. Nothing else exists. The population of Shiny-town is always exactly 1. All the roads lead in to Shiny-town and once on the Shiny-turnpike there are no exits to anywhere else. It is a big black hole with a glimmering mirror for a sky and by day the reflection of the Shiny provides light and by night a single Shining Star completes a constellation of one.