Pretending that his shoulders were simply sore from multiple repetitions on the lat-pulldown machine, UM sophomore Kyree Holmes took a brief respite from his shoulders and pecs day workout once he realized he would die one day.
“I don’t know, dude, I just suddenly thought like, ‘Why am I here? I have so few precious hours left on this earth, should I really be spending my time at the gym?’” Holmes stated. “And then once I started walking down that road, I started thinking that maybe my time would be better spent volunteering or learning or reading or something,” Holmes said of his spontaneous existential crisis.
“Like, what the fuck,” he added, “I didn’t want to deal with that right then.”
Upon switching his iPod to James Taylor, Holmes proceeded to trudge around the track in a farmer walk, all the while contemplating questions such as “What makes life worth living?”
“On the one hand, I want to think it’s love and personal relationships that makes it all worth it,” Holmes sighed, massaging his over-worked shoulder, “But then I realize I haven’t called my parents in two months and I barely talk to my friends from high school anymore. Does that make me a bad person? Does it mean I’m not really invested in those relationships to begin with?”
Holmes moved to his last routine of the workout, which involved behind-the-back drag curls on the Smith machine. He outperformed recent workout results, which he attributed to a growing frustration with the state of his life and the unsolicited advice of everyone around him.
“I’ve seen all this stuff online which is like, ‘Just choose to be happy.’ That’s bullshit, though, you know? I mean, can humans ever truly choose to be happy? And for that matter, what is happiness? I guess I’ll have to ask the teenaged, upper-middle class bitch who just learned how to use Tumblr and copy-paste inspirational quotes on a tropical background.”
“Fuck that, dude. I’m done,” Holmes groaned as he left the gym, taking sips from his protein shake.
At press time, Holmes was watching the last half of the basketball game before class which reminded him yet again of the constant battle man is engaged with against the universe.
Originally Published Mar 2014.
