The thing about memories wasn't that many of them inevitably faded, but that repeated recall of the ones you remembered burnished them into shining, gorgeous lies
Perhaps Phillip was just not interested in becoming stronger; perhaps it was not the exercise itself that mattered to him, but the experience of it. Maybe he wanted to set the tone of each morning by always trying, always failing, the consequent band of pain across his chest serving as a reminder of that failure to carry him through the day.
