Tuesday, June 07, 2011

The 'Pretty' bias

For reasons which are beyond the scope of this blog, yours truly has joined a gym and furthermore has to go there and work out daily. I consider it one of the absurdities of our'evolved' society that you drive 2. 5 kms to that stupid gym and pay them 2.5 k just so that they'll let you walk on that treadmill for 15 min or so.
Anyway, In this gym that i go to, I have a 'trainHer'.  Thar's right. He has so little interest in training 'hims' that I thought it's only fair that I give him an extra 'h' and make his name suit his preferences .He is 6 odd feet tall with all the right bulges and cuts.The first day that I went, he asked me to do pull-ups.In a moment of haste (and in hindsight, a very forgettable one), I asked him how many? He just motioned me to start. All I managed was a pull-up and half-dozen microscopic movements and twitches. So my trainHer patted me on my back with probably the most condescending look I have ever received. He has watched me over these few days and whatever I have done over these few days has only cemented his opinion about me or the lack of it.
So the other day I really felt like telling him, that I am not the scum of the earth after-all and I .. well.. could be good above average in some other field for all he knows. Like I have cleared Vibrations in my first attempt, have heard of Kafka, Achebe  .. and so on...
But I realised I would have to first tell him who isAchebe, why it is good to read him and so on... Infact to explain any so called accomplishment of mine, I would have to give him an elaborate background as to why I think of it as an accomplishment.....Nah...not worth the effort.
So it suddenly struck me that Intelligence( or in my case, the pretense of it) needs to be explained. Beauty, however skin- deep or muscle- tight is self explanatory.
So next time, you have the sorting hat asking you, ... think what you want to shape.