That post about “anyone can be in great physical shape if it’s one of your top three priorities” annoyed me in a hard-to-describe way until I realized that my top three priorities are “have a job,” “have acceptable personal hygiene” and “have a living space that’s fit for human habitation,” and that the privilege of having any different top three priorities is reserved for people a lot richer than me
this incidentally raises interesting thoughts about the definition of priorities
We don’t usually start thinking of things as “priorities” unless they are within a certain… uncannyish valley, in terms of our access to them
i.e. achievable and desirable, but NOT so certain that they are taken for granted
if i were in a situation where my access to breathable oxygen was uncertain from day to day, i would definitely think of it as a higher priority than the three i mentioned
and meanwhile, someone who does value things like income and hygiene and a livable home over great physical shape… might still not think of it that way, if their ability to have income and hygiene and a livable home has never been in question
This is also very true through a disability lens. Being in shape generally necessitates things such as having mitochondria that work properly but more importantly, not needing to spend what precious energy we have on something else. Why would a person with so few spoons to begin with, spend them on moving vigorously and sweating for no tangible outcome? That’s frankly a shit use of spoons.
For someone who already struggles to budget energy towards basic functioning/happiness, there is absolutely no sane reason to go to the gym.
Totally. And that’s…. really also more of how I currently experience the limitation too, with my health the way it currently is.
( I framed it initially as an issue of economic privilege, because i grew up in economic privilege, and I know how that can make many things more achievable even with a disability.
But… the other way around is also true. There’s stuff disability can take from you that money can’t make up for. Especially not an amount of money that a disabled person can have a reasonable hope of ever getting.)
(And those two things feed into each other a LOT. Being disabled is a quick way to run out of money; running out of money is a quick way to become disabled.)
(And when that struggle is in your life, priorities involving the physical shape of your body tend to get limited to “keep it alive.”)