Why is it called a nervous system? I guess it is nerves in a system. Nerves that reach the brain and become a nervous system.

As I sit on the gym bench, I do indeed feel like a nervous system. A feeling of want passes through me like a dark cloud pregnant with bad news. I don’t know what I want. I do know what I don’t want. I don’t want to do this next set. I don’t want to think. 

This dark cloud feels like a bully. A bully with a bad attitude and the neediness of a baby. I don’t know where he came from, what caused him to bully around in my head or what he is after. It feels desperate. A nervous system.

A moment ago, I was in a good old fashioned cage fight with a barbell: Atlas fighting the crushing weight of the whole universe over my head. Back then, in my Titan days, I definitely was nerves in a system. I was muscle fibres, tendons and heavy breaths. All my wants and needs were reduced to a moment of duty, fervour and survival necessity. 

The sky knows how to rid dark, ominous clouds. It tends to do one of two things: let the cloud pass or let it rain. Both involve a re-recognition of what the cloud really is. Rather than a dark, encompassing cloud, it can be seen as a blip in a clear sky passing by like Satan’s hot-air balloon. On the other hand, the dark cloud is simply water vapor that will soon be released and rain on the earth below.

It’s time for my next set. I am alone in the gym and alone in the walls of my head. No one know if I decide to pack up and go home. No one will know about the dark cloud and how it feels like torture to walk over to the barbell. 

I walk up to the bar regardless. If it’s so terrible, I’ll just do one rep instead of three. Readjust my goals. Give a chance for the cloud to pass but also allow the grace for it to stay.

Something happens when you are under a weight heavier than you. A weight that, if you don’t engage your physicality, will crush you. Somewhere in between the second and third rep of the squat, my dark cloud began to rain. 

It rained in a scream and physical pain. It rained with blood rushing out of my head to my body. It rained without a realization or a logical conclusion. It rained, and returned me to feeling.

Nervous system. Or nerves in a system?