Doty At The Gym

Another explanation for Doty’s drive to analyze can be provided by Elizabeth W. Dunn’s, Daniel T. Gilbert’s, and Timothy D. Wilson’s study on the relation between money and happiness. Dunn, Gilbert, and Wilson recorded that the happiness of subjects who spent money on others was higher compared to those who spent money on themselves. An interesting discovery of the study was that “the actual amount they spent didn’t matter… even spending $5 on someone else may be enough to make people feel happier.” From the study’s conclusion, just the act of giving yields pleasure and not so much how much. Not having to give a lot is enticing because it is as if our brains are hardwired to give. Before this study, I would have acknowledged the pleasure gained

In his poem, “At the Gym,” he analyses the act of working out but also focuses on the small sweat mark made by those who workout. His view of exercises is clouded by his coupling style of writing. In one verse he describes people who work out as performing a useless task and “hoist nothing that need be lifted,” pushing “something unyielding” and it being “some burden they've chosen.” When Doty uses words like “burden” and “nothing,” it sounds like Doty has a negative impression of working out. Like when he describes the mark made on the bench as a “salt stained spot.” Yet, in another verse the mark is represented as a “nimbus” or “halo,” giving the impression of appeal towards working out. The problem Doty expresses in his description here isn’t only that out of the whole gym experience he chose the small sweat stain to analyze, but also that he doesn’t have a clear stance of what he analyzes. When he says, “here is some halo the living made together,” is the halo a result of a marvelous and holy activity that humans partake in or is it pointless stain from a task that they burden themselves with? Doty suggests the theme of a uniting community once again with the phrase “the living made together,” and I get the hint that there is benefits from working out as a community, but because of his mixed thoughts it is difficult to understand how Doty feels about working out in a