One sluggish afternoon at Canyon High, as Mrs. Hanson’s freshman English class shuffled into their desks and prepared to feign interest in Romeo and Juliet, I had something far more compelling on my desk: Pumping Iron. It was my sacred text, my adolescent scripture, filled with black-and-white photos of demi-gods flexing under the Californian sun. My favorite shot was of Mr. Universe Franco Columbu, hanging upside down from a chin-up bar like a bat carved from granite.
Next to me sat Jill Swanson—tall, sleek, with the effortless grace of a swimmer and the smile of someone who had never sweated through a protein fart. I decided this was my moment. I turned the page toward her.
“Hey,” I said, “check out this bodybuilder at the beach.”
She leaned in. “Holy smokes, he’s huge.”
I nodded solemnly. “That’s me.”
She blinked. “What?”
“That’s me. Can’t you tell?”
Jill squinted at the photograph, studying the Herculean Italian upside down in all his vascular glory.
“Oh my God,” she said slowly. “That’s you?”
“Yep.”
And just like that, I was Franco Columbu. I spun a whole mythology—how I’d been visiting my grandparents in L.A., hanging out with my “bodybuilding friends” in Venice, when a photographer captured me mid-workout.
For five glorious minutes, I was a god among freshmen. Then, as Jill flipped back to her notes and I basked in the afterglow of deceit, the truth curdled in my gut. The lie that had inflated me like a balloon was already leaking air. By the time I got home, I felt hollow and cheap. I stared into the bathroom mirror, splashed cold water on my face, and summoned my inner monk.
“Master Po,” I said, “why am I such a compulsive liar?”
“Because, Grasshopper,” he replied, “you wish to appear strong because you are weak. True strength is not forged in muscle but in mastering your inner demons.”
“I have only one?”
“No,” he said, “but let’s start with the demon of inadequacy—the one that makes you trade truth for applause.”
“How do I kill it?”
“You don’t,” he said. “You chip away at it. Great acts are made of small deeds. Each honest act is a strike against the demon.”
“But where do I start?”
“Stop gazing at your reflection as though it’s a sculpture to be admired,” he said. “When you cease to worship yourself, you’ll stop fearing imperfection. The sage who puts himself last finds nourishment. You, Grasshopper, are still starving.”
I looked at my reflection—small, soft, and decidedly un-Franco-like—and realized Master Po was right. The hardest muscle to build is the one that keeps you honest.
Cinemorphosis 
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