I woke up this morning wondering why human muscle mass is such an attractive feature in our culture today. That is, why are fit people with defined muscles “more attractive” than couch potatoes.
My mind leaped to the idea that this taps into a primitive part of our brain that says, “If times get tough, and we have to resort to cannibalism, you want to have the right friends.” Uh, okay mind, that’s interesting. Then via inversion I speculated that perhaps the rise of obesity in America can be attributed to a deep-rooted fear of cannibalism. After all, who would want to eat the lumpy gristle that constitutes the body of most Americans? If it turns out that someday we’re roaming the streets looking for a nice gluteus maximus to tuck into for supper a lot of people are going to be pretty safely off limits. Similarly, perhaps the popularity of garlic in blue-state cuisine is an attempt to minimize the off-chance danger of vampires.
I wonder if all this very interesting morning thought has to do with the proposals I have to write today, and the lawyer’s cliché that “you eat what you kill.” In any case, Good Morning!
May 18, 2006