The Smith Machine and The Status Circus

A Morning Routine, A Treadmill, and the Theatre of Power

I go to the gym in my society. It's a small gym, more like a personal one. It has four treadmills, two cycling machines, one Smith machine, and a couple of machines for back muscles.

The gym opens at 7 in the morning and closes at 11.30. I have only been going to this gym for the last 2 months, as long as I have stayed here. Unlike other gyms where people pay for the membership, here people pay maintenance to the society and access the gym. I have been observing a lot of difference in how people behave. Like in a commercial gym, they would wait for others to finish, they would want to rerack the weights as that makes them look more civilised. They would carry the most expensive outfits, bottles and all the other accessories.

But that's not the case with society gyms, people would purposely try to keep the weights here and there, especially the ones in power in the society committee. They would dress like they were just robbed yesterday and this is the only stuff left.

They would want to consume as much as they can with as little mindfulness as they can. It makes them feel in some kind of control (I in fact think it makes them look miserable)
Why do people do so? The status games are so funny yet so weird.
I love Alain’s work in the below video. Even the book with the same name is really good.

Do you ever observe people playing weird status games ?