Iron Never Lies

You need a few things in your life that don’t bend to your current narrative. Things that are unmoved by your shifting moods, excuses, delusions, despair, or triumphs. These static benchmarks help you measure your growth and anchor you to reality.

Henry Rollins, frontman of Black Flag, wrote an ode to iron, because when you lift weights, iron doesn’t change its weight, only your strength changes.

While your mind can twist reality to soothe your ego, iron, with its uncompromising physical reality, won’t participate in your self-deception. It doesn’t give a shit how you feel. As Rollins wrote, two hundred pounds “is always two hundred pounds,” regardless of whether you slept well, had a breakup, want to lift, or want the weight to exist.

What is iron in your life? What qualities, what people, what ideas can you rely on to bring you back to reality? Iron comes in many forms:

• Miles don’t get shorter or longer, your pace changes.
• Words in a book don’t rearrange themselves, though your perspective and the way you interpret the words evolve over time.
• Old photos and journal entries won’t edit themselves to fit your current memory of events.
• Certain people, especially those who’ve known you for years, can offer stillness among your shifting selves.

Sometimes, the kindest thing you can receive is brutal honesty. A constant, unyielding presence that won’t kneel to you. Rely on iron to give you bearing on larger pursuits amid the turbulence of life.

“The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.”

~Henry Rollins