Cinemorphosis

Tag: life

  • Relevance or Death: The Watch Collector’s Dilemma

    Relevance or Death: The Watch Collector’s Dilemma

    In her darkly hilarious comedy special Father, Atsuko Okatsuka shares the origin story of her career in punchlines. Her schizophrenic mother once “kidnapped” her in Japan and whisked her away to the United States without warning, severing her ties to her father in the process. The trauma was so disorienting, so profound, that Atsuko now mines laughter for survival. She tells us, with a comedian’s grin and a survivor’s twitch, that she performs to fill an infinite hole in her soul with the validation of strangers.

    That hole is not unique to her. It’s a universal pit—bottomless and demanding. Validation comes in many flavors. For some, it’s esteem and admiration. For others, it’s expertise, artistry, the warm glow of audience approval. For Atsuko, it’s laughter. For others, it’s the faint buzz of a “like” on a post about a wristwatch.

    Let us now consider the watch obsessive, a different breed of relevance-seeker, but a kindred spirit nonetheless. He isn’t doing five-minute sets at the Laugh Factory, but he is performing—on Instagram, on forums, on YouTube, in the comment sections of strangers’ macro shots. He presents his taste, his “knowledge,” his ever-shifting collection. But underneath the sapphire crystals and brushed titanium is the same primal whisper:
    Do I still matter?
     Do they still see me?

    Here’s the tragic twist: he may already have the perfect collection. It gives him joy. It’s balanced. It fits in a single watch box. By all logic, he should stop. Buying another watch would be like adding a fifth leg to a table—wobbly and unnecessary. But he doesn’t stop. He can’t stop.

    Why? Because if he stops collecting, he stops posting. If he stops posting, he stops being seen. And in a world addicted to scrolling, disappearing feels like dying.

    Relevance is the new oxygen. And social media is a machine that runs on novelty, not legacy. The digital hive forgets fast. “Gangnam Style” is now a fossil. “Call Me Maybe” is background noise at the grocery store. To stay visible, you must be new. You must be shiny. You must offer dopamine.

    And what happens when the watch addict manages his demons, reaches peace, and stops feeding the machine?

    He becomes boring. He becomes silent. He becomes irrelevant.

    And the parasocial bonds he once had—those illusory friendships, those mutual obsessions—fade. The sense of exile is real. It doesn’t matter that the exile is self-imposed. The pain still lingers.

    That fear—that primordial fear of irrelevance, of being cast out from the tribe—can be so powerful it masquerades as passion. It convinces the watch obsessive to keep flipping, keep chasing, keep posting. Not out of love, but out of fear.

    So the question becomes: Are we collectors? Or are we hostages? Do we love horology? Or are we simply terrified of vanishing?

  • Camry vs. Accord: The Obsession That Killed My Career

    Camry vs. Accord: The Obsession That Killed My Career

    Last night I dreamed I was adrift in a farmer’s market purgatory, toggling between two dried fruit stalls like a man on a doomed pilgrimage. At one end stood my friend Adam, hawking dried apricots beside his immaculate new Honda Accord, polished to a showroom glint. At the other, Andre offered prunes with the calm assurance of a man backed by a brand-new Toyota Camry.

    I paced between them, acting like a mildly deranged Consumer Reports correspondent. I asked about mileage, comfort, tire pressure, road feel. Adam, ever candid, confessed that his Accord’s 19-inch tires required constant babysitting—a weekly ritual of crouching beside his car like a penitent monk, pumping air into finicky rubber. Andre, on the other hand, practically preened. His Camry had no such neediness. His tires, he implied, were stoic and self-reliant, like Roman centurions.

    As my dithering grew more manic, Adam and Andre began to notice. They called each other—yes, in the dream they phoned each other mid-market—and the temperature dropped. Andre, initially genial, grew terse. Adam smirked defensively over his dried apricots. The whole affair soured like old fruit.

    Then, like a man possessed, I made my declaration. I would buy the Camry. Not for the horsepower. Not for the design. But because I refused—refused!—to spend my golden years crouching beside a car, inflating tires like a desperate cyclist.

    No sooner had I made my proclamation than the dream world pivoted sharply, as dreams do. I was no longer in a farmer’s market—I was on a college campus. But not my college. Not the place where I once held a proud tenure-track post. No, I had been demoted. My prestigious job had evaporated. I was now an adjunct at some podunk backwater school with low ceilings and fluorescent lights that hummed with institutional malaise.

    Why the fall from grace? Simple. My years spent obsessing over the Camry-vs-Accord dilemma had not gone unnoticed. While I was inhaling tire PSI data and fondling prune samples, my absence from the college became conspicuous. The administrators, ruthless as vultures in blazers, terminated me. I had toggled too long. My career had flatlined.

    I woke at 5 a.m. in a wash of dread and despair—not from the dream’s end, but from the clatter of the real world: an Amazon delivery person, fumbling at the gate, dropping a box on the porch like a coffin lid.

    I opened it. Inside was a stainless steel bathroom trash can, taller, sleeker, with built-in liners—my daughter’s request. Unlike our old can, which was a rust-streaked monument to hygienic defeat, this one gleamed with a kind of futuristic dignity. Its surface mirrored my face: puffy, sleepless, faintly haunted.

    And yet, in its shimmering steel, I saw something unexpected: hope. Renewal. The modest redemption of functional design.

    A new beginning, sealed in plastic wrap.

  • Uncut Bezels: Watch Addiction and the Cult of Chaos

    Uncut Bezels: Watch Addiction and the Cult of Chaos

    Watch obsessives have more in common with Howard Ratner than we care to admit. Yes, that Howard Ratner—the unhinged gem pusher played with twitchy brilliance by Adam Sandler in the Safdie brothers’ cinematic panic attack, Uncut Gems. Ratner operates in the Diamond District behind bulletproof glass, drowning in sparkle and debt. We operate behind the bulletproof delusions of horological obsession, buried in brushed steel and moonphase complications.

    Like Ratner, we gamble—not at sportsbooks, but with FedEx tracking numbers. We tell ourselves, this is the one as we refresh the delivery status of the next “grail” watch. The package might as well be glowing, Pulp Fiction-style. And like Ratner chasing a cursed Ethiopian black opal mined from the bloodied crust of the Earth, we twist ourselves into financial and emotional pretzels to score that one special piece—the wrist-mounted miracle that will finally quiet the voices.

    Spoiler: it never does.

    Ratner is a man who thinks more is the cure. More bets. More jewels. More chaos. The watch obsessive runs the same play. We soothe our midlife despair not with therapy or silence, but with spring drives, meteorite dials, and limited edition bronze cases. Our collections don’t grow—they metastasize.

    Like Ratner, our problem isn’t the world. Our problem is internal. The call is coming from inside the skull. He can’t stop because he doesn’t want to stop. The thrill is the point. Every acquisition, every wrist shot, every gushing forum post—just another hit of synthetic joy to distract from the gnawing void. We call it a hobby. Let’s not kid ourselves. It’s dopamine addiction disguised as design appreciation.

    Uncut Gems is a cinematic espresso shot laced with panic. My wife and brother couldn’t sit through thirty minutes. Too stressful, they said. Too jittery. I’ve watched it three times.

    But of course I have. I’m a watch addict.

    I live in Ratner’s world. The caffeinated chaos? That’s not discomfort. That’s home.

  • The Next One Is Always the One

    The Next One Is Always the One

    About eight years ago, I experienced the horological equivalent of speed dating. Two watches arrived on the same afternoon: a Seiko Sumo SBDC001 with a black dial and sapphire, and the sleeker SBDC051—a reissue of the classic 62MAS. I placed them side by side like two contestants in a Darwinian experiment, then strapped each one on as if I were auditioning them for the role of “forever watch.”

    It wasn’t even close.

    The 051 had the refinement and wrist presence of a watch that knew it belonged. Crisp finishing. Perfect proportions. Lume that could guide ships through fog. The Sumo? It felt cheap. It wasn’t worth half of the 051. I sold it before dinner. Brutal, but deserved.

    Fast-forward eight years. I’m hunting again—not for a grail, but for something that will sing when paired with my beloved orange Divecore strap, the one accessory that unlocks my inner Watch Beast. Naturally, I thought about giving the Sumo a redemption arc—maybe the gray-wave dial SBDC177? But my instincts flared. Once a dud, always a dud?

    Then I spotted the polygonal Seiko SBDC203 (SPB483), aka the “Coastline,” and something clicked. This one looks like it could go toe-to-toe with the 051. Sharp lines, killer specs, and the kind of tactile satisfaction you only get when Seiko decides to actually try.

    Two closing thoughts:

    First, nothing has made me feel more bonded to my watch obsession than the orange Divecore strap. It’s not just a strap—it’s a mood, an identity, a wrist-based mission statement.

    Second, I’ve come to believe the real addiction isn’t the watches. It’s the brain hijack you constantly crave. The way your brain lights up when The Next Thing to Get starts coming into focus. That little thrill of clarity when you think, Yes, this is the one. It’s the same buzz I get from customizing a Camry XSE in Heavy Metal Gray on Fletcher Toyota’s website and seeing it listed for “only” $38K—a car I may or may not buy but already love as if it’s parked in my soul’s garage.

    Humans are a deranged species. We crave imaginary ownership like it’s the secret to inner peace.

  • Flex Day: A Tragedy in Tube Socks

    Flex Day: A Tragedy in Tube Socks

    Another Flex Day had dawned—yet again a gaudy parade of icebreaker drivel, PowerPoint piety, and educational workshops led by people who looked like they’d been conjured by a bureaucratic séance. Against my better instincts—and with a flicker of masochistic hope I should’ve interrogated—I signed up for a session titled Exercise and Mental Wellness. It was being held in the Hobcallow campus gym, a crumbling monument to deferred maintenance and broken promises. If buildings could sigh, this one would’ve let out a long, exhausted groan. Everything about it screamed “run,” but I ignored the sirens blaring in my skull and walked straight in, armed with denial and a water bottle.

    The gym was a fluorescent-lit dungeon, the kind of place where even the light seemed desperate to escape. The air reeked of mildew, ancient sweat, and the crushed dreams of generations who’d suffered through dodgeball and underfunding. I could practically hear the scent—a low moan of institutional despair.

    Then the “fitness expert” took the stage. He looked like he subsisted on steamed kale and unprocessed anxiety. His limbs were pipe cleaners, and his tube socks rode high up his shins like he was waving tiny surrender flags. A whistle hung from his neck, though it clearly served more as costume than command. The guy had the aura of a substitute gym teacher in a 1979 after-school special—minus the charm. With the fervor of a man unveiling the cure for cancer, he launched into a sermon on the redemptive power of push-ups. According to him, daily push-ups could defeat depression, boost classroom charisma, and chisel us into statues Michelangelo would envy.

    I sat among fifty or so other professors, all of us bearing the glazed, shell-shocked expressions of people who’d just survived a bureaucratic earthquake. When the whistle-wielder asked for a volunteer to demonstrate the proper push-up, silence fell across the gym like a dropped curtain. Heavy. Suffocating. It was the sound of collective academic burnout, of souls ground into dust by budget cuts and endless committee meetings.

    Eventually, someone was nudged forward. “Volunteer” was a generous word. The man was more of a human offering. He shuffled onto the stage in a suit that draped off him like wet laundry. His glasses clung to his face like they were afraid to be part of what came next. He moved like a man who had made a series of increasingly regrettable choices that had all led here.

    Then he went down for the push-up—and the moment collapsed into slapstick tragedy. His arms gave out instantly, like a folding chair kicked from behind. His glasses launched from his face and slid across the gym floor, desperate for escape. He lay there wheezing like a deflating accordion, the very embodiment of what happens when the intellect thrives and the body is left for dead.

    You’d think someone might offer sympathy. A supportive chuckle. Maybe a smattering of ironic applause. Nope. The room was pure stone—emotionally fossilized. A few professors exchanged murmured postmortems. Most stared ahead with the blank-eyed stillness of DMV patrons or people deep into a hostage negotiation.

    And when it finally ended, I fled. I bolted, heart pounding, mind racing, lungs grateful just to be outside again. It wasn’t enlightenment I’d found that day. Just confirmation: some kinds of despair really do come with a whistle.

    After surviving thirty Flex Days—each one more spiritually numbing than the last—I’ve come to a grim conclusion: these spectacles aren’t designed to make us better instructors. No, they’re the bureaucratic equivalent of waterboarding. Their true purpose is to remind us, in the most humiliating way possible, that we are not free agents but indentured servants to a cabal of institutional overlords who wouldn’t recognize actual education if it bit them on their lanyards. The activities they concoct—team-building scavenger hunts, trust falls, and workshops on how to smile while grading—aren’t just irrelevant to higher learning. They are a brazen insult to critical thinking itself, proof that the people orchestrating these charades are not only disconnected from the classroom, but from basic cognitive function. Flex Days are not professional development; they’re intellectual purgatory dressed up in business casual.

  • Arm-Wrestling My Way into Belonging

    Arm-Wrestling My Way into Belonging

    Last night, I had a dream so vivid it might as well have come with a recruitment brochure. Word had spread—apparently my reputation as the guy who could teach college football players to write sentences that didn’t cause nosebleeds had reached mythical status. Somewhere in South Carolina, perched on a beach with the casual arrogance of a luxury condo, a university decided they needed me. Urgently.

    Some guy—I don’t remember his name, only that he had the calm urgency of a cult recruiter—convinced me to hop on a bus. The ride took five seconds. Not metaphorically. Five actual seconds. Blink and boom: there I was, standing on a beach so perfect it made the California coast look like an overhyped sandbox.

    The air was humid but in a sensual, Southern Gothic sort of way. The kind of air that makes you forgive mosquitoes and contemplate linen pants. The sun was melting into the Atlantic like it had nowhere better to be. I was home, or something like it.

    Coaches greeted me like I’d just been drafted into sainthood. Players clapped me on the back and called me “Coach,” which I didn’t correct because, frankly, it felt good. Then came the arm wrestling. One by one, I took them down like some middle-aged Hercules hopped up on tenure and protein powder. Elbow to the table, bicep to the heavens. I wasn’t just respected—I was essential.

    It wasn’t about strength. It was about belonging. Every laugh, every handshake, every ridiculous display of masculine absurdity made me feel needed in a way that was almost embarrassing. I wasn’t just part of the team. I was the team.

    I wanted to call my wife back in California, to tell her we were moving. I had found the Promised Land, and it came with free gym access and a faculty parking permit. But the joyous noise around me was too loud. The players were hooting, the coaches were laughing, and the ocean kept slapping the shore like it had something to prove. I’d call her later, I told myself.

    Then I woke up.

    The ceiling fan was rattling. My desire for dark roast coffee was pressing. And I was back in the real world, where my inbox was probably filled with late assignments and vague threats from the IT department.

    Still, the dream stuck with me. Not because of the location, or the humidity, or the freakish arm strength—but because of the feeling. That feeling of being wanted. Of being part of something. Of mattering.

    There is no substitute for that. None.

  • Desert Paradise for the Chronically Disenchanted

    Desert Paradise for the Chronically Disenchanted

    Fresh off the bus from the bustling Bay Area, you found yourself marooned in Hobcallow—a sun-bleached corner of California that could only be generously described as a town. With zero friends and even fewer social obligations, you embraced your solitude like a monk taking a vow of silence. Your one-bedroom apartment became your sanctuary—no roommates, no forced small talk, just you and the sweet luxury of never having to negotiate chores or TV channels.

    Your companions? A stack of CDs featuring Morrissey, The Smiths, and other bands that sounded like group therapy sessions set to a minor key. The soundtrack was perfect as you labored over your novel Hercu-Dome, your dystopian magnum opus in which society punished the overweight with Orwellian fervor for failing to meet state-mandated body standards.

    When you weren’t writing, you plinked away on your Yamaha ebony upright, conjuring self-indulgent sonatas that only the most pretentious muses could appreciate. You didn’t read music so much as let it ooze out of you—luscious chords here, shameless glissandos there—while imagining some ethereal goddess materializing in your living room to stroke your ego as you struck a soulful pose.

    Compared to the misery of your college days in the Bay Area, your Hobcallow digs felt like a five-star resort. Back then, you hadn’t been living so much as squatting in a glorified crawlspace. That room had a gaping hole in the wall, perfectly positioned at bed level, letting in gusts of cold air so vengeful it felt like the Bay’s fog had developed a personal vendetta against you. Sleeping wasn’t rest—it was combat. You huddled under layers like you were gearing up for an Everest summit—jacket, hat, and gloves included, if the wind got particularly sassy.

    Your diet back then was a tragicomedy in three acts: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Cheerios were the lead performer, while bean-and-cheese burritos played the understudy when you felt adventurous. These “burritos” were little more than refried sludge folded into tortillas with all the flexibility of a sheet of drywall. The cheese? The kind that refused to melt out of pure spite, clinging to the tortilla like it was serving a life sentence. Each bite reminded you that you weren’t starving—but you were nowhere near thriving either.

    Your transportation situation was another chapter in your tale of woe. You drove a ten-year-old Toyota Tercel that was less car and more haunted maraca. Every time you touched the brakes, the thing let out a tortured groan, like it wanted to die with dignity. Navigating the Bay Area hills required a white-knuckled grip and a whispered prayer that the Tercel wouldn’t roll backward into a bus full of nuns and cyclists. Fixing it became a twisted game of financial Russian roulette: either repair the brakes or buy groceries. One of you had to suffer.

    Money? Scarcer than warmth in that arctic excuse for a room. Every broken item—of which there were many—demanded a patch job involving duct tape, superstition, and whatever scraps you could scavenge. Gathering enough quarters for the laundromat felt like winning a regional lottery. “Luxury” meant adding an extra spoonful of salsa to your burrito—living on the edge by upgrading the spice level in a meal otherwise soaked in depression.

    Looking back, it was a miracle you escaped that purgatory with your sanity—or whatever passed for it. That drafty hellhole taught you resilience, sure, but more than anything, it taught you to laugh at the sheer absurdity of trying to survive in a city that demanded gold while you were scraping together lint and hope.

    So there you were, newly settled in this desert hideaway, craving a hint of the luxury you’d never known. On weekends, you tanned your lean, 195-pound frame beside The Springs’ apartment pool—a so-called “luxury” pool that only deserved the title because the sign said so. Real friendships didn’t blossom there—friendships were messy and overrated—but you collected a small cluster of “acquaintances,” a bizarre cast of characters who could only exist in this sun-scorched limbo.

    You weren’t thriving, but at least you weren’t freezing or chewing on cardboard disguised as food. And in a place like Hobcallow, that was as close to paradise as you were ever going to get.

  • Barbells and Boundaries

    Barbells and Boundaries

    Late one Saturday afternoon, you were marooned in your bedroom, held hostage by the epic saga playing out in your kitchen. Paul Bergdorf, a plumber with the emotional subtlety of a freight train, had been battling the kitchen sink since morning. His oversized toolbox had exploded across the linoleum floor like a mechanical crime scene. Every few minutes, you heard a grunt or a thud, the sounds of a man locked in mortal combat with ancient pipes.

    Your mom strolled into your room with a face that mixed gratitude with a romantic optimism that always smelled like a warning.
    “It’s so nice of him to do this,” she said.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” you asked.
    “He’s not charging me.”
    “Of course he is.”
    “No, he’s a friend.”
    “He’s not your friend, Mom. You just met him.”
    “His name is Paul Bergdorf. One of my girlfriends introduced me to him.”
    “This isn’t going to end well.”
    “Keep your voice down.”

    Right then, Bergdorf bellowed from the kitchen, proudly declaring that the sink had been fixed. Your mom hurried away. You stayed in your room, knocking out reverse barbell curls while watching through the sliding glass door that connected your room to the atrium. Beyond that was the kitchen, where Bergdorf stood like a sweaty gladiator, wiping his greasy mitts on a rag. He looked like a bloated baby trying to cosplay as a man: massive belly, oil-streaked jeans, beat-up boots, and that tragic attempt at a combover. His blue eyes were permanently glazed, his nose red and bulbous like a squashed tomato, and the house now reeked of his sweat mingled with low-grade cologne.

    He turned the faucet on, then off, proudly displaying his handiwork. “Now before I go,” he said, puffing out his chest, “I just want to say—I may not be the best-looking guy around, but I can grill a damn good steak. I’m talking big, thick, juicy slabs of meat. How about joining me next weekend for a barbecue?”

    “That’s very nice, but no thanks,” your mom said, her tone firm.

    Your forearms burned from the 50 reverse curls, but you kept going, switching to wrist curls as if preparing for battle.

    “I’ll get us some prime steaks,” he pressed on. “You won’t believe how tender they’ll be.”

    “Thanks again, but I’m busy.”

    “All I ask is one chance to serve up the most delicious barbecued steak you’ve ever had.”

    “No, really. I’m not available.”

    “Just pick any weekend,” he insisted, “and I’ll deliver a steak you’ll never forget.”

    Your forearms were bulging. That was it. You dropped the barbell, stormed down the hall, past the dining room, and burst into the kitchen like a SWAT team with a moral objection.

    “How many times does she have to say no?” you demanded.

    “Hey, let’s cool it,” Bergdorf replied, raising his hands. “I was just asking your mom out. I fixed the sink. It’s the least I could do.”

    “If you want to volunteer your plumbing skills, great. But fixing a drain doesn’t entitle you to date privileges.”

    “I just wanted to make her a steak!”

    “Okay, we get it. You’re a steak wizard. Good for you. Now pack up your tools and get the hell out.”

    You towered over him, finger pointed at the front door like an Old Testament angel. Bergdorf glared, shoved his tools into the truck, slammed the door, and roared off, trailing a plume of driveway dust behind him.

    Your mom just stood there, stunned.
    “You scared him away,” she said.
    “Next time, let’s just pay the plumber.”

  • Hulk Couture: The Fashion Crimes of a Musclebound Child

    Hulk Couture: The Fashion Crimes of a Musclebound Child

    Whether you admit it or not, a part of you still wants to Hulk out like a fever-dream escapee from a 1970s television set. Watching the gentle, tortured soul of Bill Bixby morph into Lou Ferrigno’s snarling green colossus wasn’t just entertainment—it was therapy without the deductible. You didn’t want to trudge through life as a tightly wound ball of quiet despair. No, you wanted to erupt, transcend, and become an unstoppable force against loud chewers, bullies, and the guy curling in the squat rack.

    As a budding bodybuilder, you didn’t need gamma rays—just iron. And lots of it. Your transformation wasn’t just about building muscle; it was a sartorial revolution. You hacked off your sweatshirt sleeves, butchered the legs of your sweatpants, and stomped through the gym like a deranged fashion anarchist. You weren’t lifting weights—you were channeling rage into reps, morphing into a DIY Hulk with every guttural breath and dripping bead of sweat.

    But your Hulk obsession started long before puberty. You were a pint-sized fanatic, glued to the 1960s cartoon version of the green juggernaut. What captivated you most was the metamorphosis: how Bruce Banner’s clothes tore away, leaving only ragged dignity and raw power. So one fateful Saturday morning, with a level of creative genius only a six-year-old could summon, you took a brand-new pair of slacks from Mayberry’s and turned them into Hulk couture—frayed, slashed, and ruined. Then you stomped into your parents’ bedroom flexing, growling, “HULK SMASH!” Lucky for you, your mother’s laughter outweighed her rage.

    This was your first known case of Ferrigno Fever: the compulsive need to emulate Lou Ferrigno’s Hulk physique and fashion sense, typically culminating in destroyed clothing and inflated delusions of grandeur.

    As a teenager, your obsession graduated to the live-action Incredible Hulk. After the chaos subsided and Ferrigno’s beast melted back into Bixby’s sorrowful wanderer, you were left with “The Lonely Man Theme”—Joe Harnell’s melancholic piano elegy—as your personal anthem. It became the soundtrack to your self-pity and your deeply misguided belief that the world had wronged you by not immediately recognizing your divine potential.

    You weren’t just lifting at the gym; you were sculpting a mythic figure, trapped in a fluorescent-lit purgatory of men who looked like overripe tomatoes with toothpick limbs. They didn’t understand. They didn’t see the epic. But you did. You were a tragic hero, a lone star bench-pressing against the gravity of a cruel, indifferent world.

    Eventually, you realized that self-pity is seductive—like opium, but cheaper and twice as cringe. It whispers lies, paints you the tragic lead in a play no one else is watching, and delays the actual work of growing up. It took years, maybe decades, to hush that voice. But for a long time, the Hulk was your muse, your fashion icon, and your excuse.

  • Micky Dolenz, Dave Draper, and the Death of a Boy’s Dreams

    Micky Dolenz, Dave Draper, and the Death of a Boy’s Dreams

    By the time you hit kindergarten, you were already a zealous convert to the gospel of hard work, marinated in a diet of children’s books and those absurdly persuasive Charles Atlas bodybuilding ads found in comic books. Your tiny brain was hardwired to believe that with enough elbow grease and grit, you could bend the universe to your will. You marched through life armed with Captain Kangaroo’s treacly aphorisms and the motivational war cries of The Little Engine That Could. “I think I can” became your toddler mantra, your creed, your caffeinated Kool-Aid.

    Then came October 16, 1967. The day optimism died.

    You were just twelve days shy of your sixth birthday, nestled into your evening ritual of watching The Monkees, when the episode “I Was a 99-lb. Weakling” detonated your reality. There on the screen was your scrappy hero Micky Dolenz, getting demolished on the beach by a slab of muscle named Bulk—played by none other than Mr. Universe Dave Draper. Bulk, a bleach-blonde Hercules with pecs that looked weaponized, snatched away Brenda, the beach goddess, without breaking a sweat.

    Crushed but hopeful, Micky sought salvation through Weaklings Anonymous. His training montage was nothing short of existential punishment: lifting weights the size of Volkswagens, chugging fermented goat milk curd (which may as well have been bottled regret), and pawning off his drum set—essentially amputating his soul—to finance this fever dream of redemption.

    And then came the final betrayal.

    After all that sweat, sacrifice, and putrid curd, Brenda dumped Bulk and hooked up with some Proust-reading dandy who probably thought cardio was a character in Les Misérables. Your six-year-old heart imploded. You sat there slack-jawed, betrayed by TV, by Micky, by Brenda, and most of all, by the myth that hard work would win the day. Goat curd couldn’t save you. Pop-Tarts couldn’t save you. Even a twin-pack of Ding Dongs barely numbed the existential sting.

    You wandered the next few years like a ghost of your former self, disillusioned, cynical, nursing your wounds in sugary snacks and quiet rage. Not until Arnold Schwarzenegger stormed into your life via Sports Illustrated and Pumping Iron did your faith in the bodybuilding gospel return. But by then, the damage was done. You knew the truth: sometimes, life crowns the guy reading Proust—and leaves the guy drinking protein shakes in the dust.