I really never imagined myself as the type of person who would join a gym. When I first moved to DC, I generally felt that anyone who couldn't find something physical to do in the real world must be suffering from a kind of urban-induced passivity, a lack of creativity regarding the possibilities for action. This was bolstered on the bright summer days when I would bike past the plate-glass windows of neighborhood gyms and see hordes of people ensconced on their stationary bikes, going nowhere in their air-conditioned world. But the forces of conformity and companionship won out, and I eventually capitulated to the local monstrous house of body-worship a block from my house.

I should have seen it coming. When I returned from Senegal, I was a scarecrow: 120 pounds of emaciated flesh on a 5'10'' bony frame. At times in Senegal, illness dropped me to around 110 pounds, and in one unfortunate bout with sickness, my then-girlfriend invited me to gain some weight before I thought about having sex again. That kind of feedback from one's lover can have a significant effect on one's self-image, and provide a compelling argument that a few spare muscles are not such a bad thing. When I came home, I spent my first unemployed months eating furiously and lifting weights until I could look at myself in the mirror without grimacing. Once you start down the treadmill to Pride, it can be difficult to step off again, and so a few months after my debut on the DC scene I found myself hefting dumbbells with all the other vain boys and girls at the neighborhood gym.

Now that I work my own hours, being able to knock off the computer and go stretch out my limbs on a freezing, rainy day is a tremendous relief. I stayed away from the various "stationary exercise" equipment, still deeply averse to most forms of transportation that prevent me from actually traveling anywhere but deeper into body culture. Then I became addicted to my gym's most recent acquisition: the "rotating rock climbing wall."

It's not east to explain the wall: imagine a cross between a rotating hinged garage door and a showroom wall in a doorknob store. It's an enormous contraption studded with little handholds for one to clamber up. It turns as you climb it, so that as you ascend the "rock," the rock rotates around underneath you. You go up and you go nowhere. The whole thing pivots so that it the climb can range from a steep hill to a frightening overhang. There are various programs you can select -- and this is the best part -- that mimic rock climbs up various heroic mountains. I like "Denali," which includes an impressive 45-degree overhang. Someday, when I'm an accomplished fake-rock climber, I'll do "The Eiger."

Never mind that attacking a real rock face is nothing like scaling an aluminum rotating wall with little rubbery grips thoughtfully placed for my hands and feet. Ascending mighty Mt. Pseudenali is an accomplishment I can enjoy any afternoon I choose. It gives me a sense of superiority over the forest of Stairmaster climbers around me. While they plod up mythical replicas of the buildings in which they live and work, I am conquering nature, or a silly facsimile of it.

After coming down from the heights of a tough climb this week, I encountered my next door neighbor, whose partner died last week. He thanked Susan and me for coming to the service, and talked for a while about the aftermath of the death. It was the first time he'd ever talked to me about his partner's illness, and I think he was glad to have a friendly face to unload a little of everything he'd been going through. I feel genuinely sorry for him, and I don't know what I would do in his place. But I struggled a little with the feeling that his confidence made me special, the sense that I was now worthy of sharing. It's odd how Pride can find its way even into moments such as that one, when I would have liked to be only concerned about his difficulties and not thinking about myself.

A man who runs a religious website recently sent an e-mail that said this:

There is something of the 7 sins web page that reminds me of children who jump in and out of traffic. People who are cognizent (sic) of the real dangers involved are concerned, if not actually angry, at the children who treat such serious matters so flippantly. Of course the children so involved are animated by that sense of power and invulnerability. Such are we who trifle with sin for amusement. Those who realize the seriousnes (sic) of sin, and our entrapment, realize our need for a savior. Who might that savior be? Do you have any ideas, opinions, or convictions?

Although I found the letter passively insulting and high-handed, it also stung a little. Despite the oft-irreverent tone of the site, I like to believe it serves more of a purpose than a frivolous flirtation with genuine Evil. I do not possess the writer's unswerving sense of absolute moral order, dictated by his sincere beliefs in a religious system, and I imagine there are a great many other souls out there who navigate the uncertainties of alluring sinfulness and attempted virtue without an absolute compass. I trust the counsel of others who know themselves to be deep in the trenches of life, rather than those who can judge the actions of the world's struggles from a hill high above the battlefield. Despite my status as another confused human among many, I would like to believe that what I write, and what I do every day, is meaningful. Is that only the sign of human Pride -- the wish to place my own philosophy over that which many understand to be the Truth? Your opinion -- or knowledge, if you belief yourself to know such things -- probably depends on where you stand in the everyday struggle between right and wrong.

I still haven't answered the e-mail, wanting instead to wonder about it for a while. I know that the response it engenders in me is as much about my own fears -- of being wrong, of being bad -- as about religion, or philosophy, or which savior, if any, I will follow out of the conflict.