Perhaps the greatest tragedy of being human isn't that we eventually die, but that we spend so much of our lives learning how to live.
State College, PA
Joined November 2016
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THE LITTLE BOY IN THE MIRROR
I can remember being four years old and already being fascinated by men with powerful, muscular physiques.
Even then, I dreamed of someday growing up to look something like them.
I had no idea that childhood dream would stay with me for more than sixty years.
Growing up wasn't particularly easy. Some of the people I most depended upon for love and acceptance instead made me feel that I was never quite good enough. Their words became the voice with which I would judge myself for much of my life.
And school did little to change that perception. I wasn't particularly athletic, handsome, or one of the kids everyone noticed. While the brighter stars among my classmates seemed to shine effortlessly, I mostly disappeared into the background, feeling increasingly invisible.
I wasn't necessarily mistreated. I simply wasn't noticed. And when you already believe you're not quite good enough, being overlooked can feel like confirmation that you were right all along.
I spent much of my youth feeling that I somehow fell short of what I was supposed to be.
And those feelings followed me into adulthood.
It's remarkable how the things we experience when we're young can shape the way we see ourselves for the rest of our lives.
Eventually, you don't need anyone else to criticize you.
You've become quite accomplished at doing it yourself.
But that little boy's dream never disappeared.
Life simply carried me along. Years became decades, and eventually the possibility of ever achieving that dream seemed increasingly remote.
In 2022, I turned 65. By then, I weighed almost 240 pounds, my health had deteriorated terribly, and nearly every health marker was pointing in the wrong direction.
I needed a CPAP machine and supplemental oxygen just to breathe properly at night. And it seemed that before the medications I was taking could address one health problem, another would come along to take its place.
Then something changed.
I decided I'd had enough.
I completely changed my diet, began exercising and losing weight, and eventually started lifting seriously, learning everything I could about building muscle.
What started as an effort to improve my health became something far more meaningful.
For the first time in my life, I was pursuing the dream I'd carried since childhood.
And slowly, my body began to change.
Now, at 69, something happens occasionally when I'm training that I'm still learning how to handle.
I'll catch my reflection in the gym mirror and notice the development in my shoulders, my arms, or my chest.
And sometimes I have to stop and look.
Because, for the first time in my life, I'm beginning to see glimpses of the muscular man I've dreamed of becoming for more than sixty years.
And lately, there have been moments when the emotions are almost overwhelming.
Part of it is happiness.
My God. That's actually me.
Part of it is regret.
Why couldn't I have experienced this when I was young? What might I have accomplished if I'd started decades earlier?
And part of it is fear.
Will I have enough time left to become everything I still dream of being?
Wonder. Regret. Fear.
All arriving together in front of that mirror.
I know I'll never achieve the development of the extraordinary bodybuilders I admire. But knowing that doesn't diminish my desire to keep trying.
I still want more muscle, bigger arms, broader shoulders, and a physique that reflects everything I'm capable of becoming.
And perhaps I always will.
But lately I've begun wondering whether I've spent too much of my life measuring myself against what I haven't achieved instead of appreciating what I have.
Perhaps that little boy who dreamed of becoming strong and muscular would be astonished to see what he's finally accomplishing at 69.
And perhaps I owe it to him to take a little pride in that.
I can't go back and give myself a different childhood.
I can't reclaim the decades that have passed.
And I can't know how much further this journey will take me.
But I can keep going.
And maybe I can learn to appreciate the man I'm becoming without constantly reminding myself how far I still have to go.
Because the little boy never stopped dreaming.
And the old man never stopped trying.
Sometimes I look into that gym mirror and struggle to hold back tears.
Not because I'm disappointed in what I see.
But because, after more than sixty years, I'm finally beginning to see something I've wanted since I was a little boy.
And more than anything, I wish I could reach back across those sixty-five years and tell that little boy that his dream wasn't foolish.
It was simply going to take a lifetime to begin coming true.
π€ Made with AI
Taras Moshenets
Some physiques are impressive. Others are just downright ridiculous.
The sheer mass, thickness, and proportions on this man are absolutely extraordinary. Especially compared to his remarkably small waist. The arms and shoulders look like they belong to another species.
Same old gym. Same restless old man.
Down from 185 to 176 on this cut, and Iβm starting to feel like a stiff breeze might blow whatβs left of me into the next county. π
Still chasing something I canβt quite name. I hope I know it when I catch it.
The funny thing is, Iβm beginning to suspect the chase was never really about catching it.
THE FIRE I CANNOT OUTRUN
I've spent much of my life believing that someday I would finally reach a place of contentment. That I would accomplish enough, experience enough, and become enough that the restless voice inside me would finally grow quiet.
But at 69, I'm beginning to wonder whether that place exists at all.
I still want to be beautiful. To be desired. To experience passion, excitement, and the intoxicating feeling of being completely alive.
Sometimes I wonder whether I should have outgrown these desires by now.
But who decided that growing older should mean wanting less?
Who decided that passion belongs to the young, or that the desire to become something extraordinary must eventually give way to a quiet acceptance of decline?
I don't remember agreeing to any of that.
And yet, there's a contradiction I cannot ignore.
The very desires that make me feel alive can also make me unhappy.
My love of beauty becomes dissatisfaction with my appearance. My ambition becomes relentless self-criticism. My desire for extraordinary experiences sometimes makes the life I already have feel smaller than it deserves to feel.
I don't want to extinguish the fire.
I just wish it didn't burn me quite so often.
And increasingly, I find myself confronting another uncomfortable truth.
I know the road ahead is shorter than the one behind me.
That's no longer an abstract philosophical observation. It's a reality I feel increasingly aware of.
Someday, whether I'm ready or not, this journey will end.
The muscles I've worked so hard to build will disappear. The things I've accumulated will belong to someone else. The face I've spent a lifetime studying in the mirror will eventually exist only in photographs and memories.
And the world will continue without me, just as it has continued without countless generations before mine.
There's something profoundly humbling about that.
But perhaps there's also something liberating.
Because if everything is temporary, maybe I don't need to spend so much of the time I have left proving that I'm worthy of being here.
Maybe I can simply be here.
Maybe I can pursue the things I love because I love them, rather than because I hope they'll finally make me lovable.
Maybe I can stop treating life as an examination I must somehow pass before I'm allowed to enjoy it.
Perhaps the challenge of my remaining years isn't learning how to fight harder, but learning how to stop turning every ambition into another judgment against myself.
To love beauty without requiring perfection. To pursue extraordinary things without overlooking the quiet beauty of ordinary life.
I don't want to become a man who has extinguished every desire, silenced every ambition, and resigned himself to whatever remains.
That wouldn't be peace to me.
It would feel like surrender.
But neither do I want to reach the end of my life having been so consumed by the pursuit of something more that I never fully appreciated what was already mine.
Somewhere between those two extremes, I hope there's a way to live.
To burn brightly without burning myself alive.
To keep moving without continually running away.
To want more without believing that I am less.
And perhaps to finally understand that the fire I've carried all these years was never supposed to be a punishment.
It was supposed to illuminate the road.
I refuse to extinguish the fire that makes me who I am. But I want to spend the years I have left being illuminated by its light, rather than consumed by its flames.
My friend Chaddix from my gym competed this past weekend at the 2026 York Barbell NPC/IFBB Pro Muscle Town Natural Championships. 22 years old and natty.
1st Lightweight BB - 2nd Classic Class A
Last weekend, my friend Dmitry asked if he could do some promotional photos for his performance auto parts company on my brotherβs horse farm.
We took their company truck and some products to the farm, and these are a few of the photos he took.
I got to play the part of truck detailer and also the part of the ghost for these Halloween photos.
RodneyRemix of @meatheadmusings
