Healing Hurts

If you’ve been to physical therapy for a chronic injury, you’re well aware that healing is pain. There’s typically much more to ridding a nagging injury than receiving a pleasurable massage.

Damaged tendons and ligaments are especially stubborn. Healing them is a game of months, not weeks.

I had a hamstring tendinopathy that lingered for months, and no amount of light exercise or massage would have any noticeable effect. It wasn’t until I focused on a spot-specific isometric hold, and performed multiple sets of 30 seconds, twice a day, that the hamstring started to get better. It’s difficult to get blood flowing through tendons, which is why it’s difficult to stimulate new cell growth.

I now know that isometric holds are the key to healing tendons. An isometric hold is a muscle contraction held in a fixed position and in one place, often against some sort of resistance. For example, if you were to use a leg extension machine in a weightroom and push to full leg extension, then hold that extended position, you would be engaged in an isometric hold. A wall sit could also be an isometric hold.

The isometric hold that helped my hamstring was challenging as hell, but I figured a few minutes of hell each day is better than a lifetime of possessing a bad hamstring.

After the hamstring recovered, I found myself wondering how many chronic injuries in the world would have healed, had hustle culture allotted more time for those afflicted. Who has the time to perform physical therapy exercises each day, in addition to routine exercise, work, and the daily obligations of adulting? Better yet, who really wants to when there are so many other lingering stressors dancing around in the mind? I suspect injured tendons often don’t heal for this reason. Instead, damaged tendons often steadily degrade until they eventually die.

Healing hurts, and similarly, I’ve noticed that once you’ve passed a life apex, maintaining the status quo hurts. Use it or lose it, the saying goes. This applies to both the body and mind.

If you don’t give your mind new stimulus and strain in the form of challanges, it eventually gives way, like a damaged tendon. Maybe we should treat our minds like a tendon in physical therapy,

So a good life requires pain, ironically, and to some extent, pain should be embraced.

Performance Oriented

I often find myself conflicted over how extensively I should chase performance, particularly in regards to athletics and creative writing.

There is a satisfying feeling when sacrificing time and effort to maximize one’s ability. For example, I’m glad that I ran the Boston Marathon.

Conversely, I sometimes reflect on the mornings I spent engaged in a two hour run and think that I’d have been happier lounging and watching a new film, or eating ice cream by the pool, or sipping coffee in a cafe and listening to music. Why engage in this compulsive and borderline self-abusive nonsense when there’s life to enjoy?

On the other hand, I enjoy the competitions and constantly look forward to the next one.

Performance results only carry relevance if they mean something personally to you. It meant something running the marathon, but I’m not sure it meant enough to justify the training as time well spent.

The act of chasing performance is still a chase, after all. And chasing can be exhausting. Chasers are more often than not oblivious to what’s going on around them, and worse yet, chasing can easily leave one trapped in an industry’s hamster wheel. Plenty of industries have capitalized on the human need to maximize performance and sell products to the chasers, often in the form of a subscription (for example, running shoes and energy gels). Leave the chase and you don’t need the subscription.

The counterargument to that would be that goals keep us invigorated. Having a goal gives us something unique to look forward to, and character growth from a unique journey.

Sometimes I think it would be better to slow down. Conversely, there’s a certain pride in knowing that I’m one of the few that can still compete, and that it keeps me young by trying to speed up.

This may always be an inner conflict. Moderation was never something that came naturally to me.

40, Forging Ahead

The 40th birthday arrived, which I didn’t think would ever happen. For so long it seemed like a speck on the horizon that a journeyman would never reach. Then one day you wake up and you’re walking in it: the middle. It fully envelopes you and is here to stay, and a new speck forms on the horizon ahead: 50.

Someone asked me if the birthday was scary and I responded that no, I’m good with most things that age doles out. The inevitable wrinkles, gray hairs, slower recovery times, ailing body parts, and (hopefully not) weakening memory are inevitable. I’m at peace with all of that. It’s the acceleration of time that worries me more.

I’ve written before that the mind tends to group memories of similar days together. If you work a predictable 9-5 office job, the mind will group memories of days, weeks, months, and years into one big chunk, creating the “last year felt like a day” phenomenon. Maybe it’s a matter of efficiency. So if you want to keep time from pushing its foot on the accelerator, the best thing you can do is remain spontaneous.

I lived much in my 30s. I lived in China for two years, moved to Saint Louis, got a cat, toured San Francisco, relaxed at Lake Michigan, hiked the Shawnee trails (and drank wine on said trails), hiked North Carolina waterfalls, hiked Yellowstone, hiked in Utah, wine tasted almost everywhere in Missouri, ran four marathons included Boston, healed a broken collarbone, lived without a car for two years, swam with sharks in the Bahamas, sipped fine Sonoma wine, toured the Florida keys, held an albino alligator, visited Mexico, visited Russia, visited France, saw most of my favorite metal bands perform live, biked the eastern US coast, learned to sleep, met my partner, and learned to accept who I am. At least that’s what initially came to mind.

So here’s to an increase in spontaneity for the next 10. It would be nice if that keeps time at stalemate. That’s what I’ll tell myself, even though I’ve seen every Final Destination film and know what’s inevitable. Managing to keep time moving slow might be an impossible task, but one can try.

I might be a little more sore the next time I find myself in a moshpit, but I’ll still be at the show.

The Life Balance Sheet

It’s easy for me to get consumed by unimportant information because by nature I’m a data cruncher. For example, I could tell you within a few million dollars how almost every movie performed opening weekend at the box office this year. What’s this useful for? Knowing and potentially regurgitating, I guess.

It’s more useful to know your own life’s balance sheet. I think I’m getting a better handle of that. It’s one reason why nearing age 40 is a lot less stressful than nearing aging 30. “Know thyself.” While living downtown I’d jump over a broken cement wall with the words “Know thyself” spray painted on it. I imagined there was some significance to this.

At the cusp of 30, I think I viewed careerism with more doom and gloom. I’ve experienced enough now to see a career as something that can provide some value, but is relatively trifling when compared to relationships, or the value of understanding life and death. I’ve seen enough people retire over the years, for example, and seen the aftermath (the company shrugs and hires someone younger, for a cheaper salary). The Protestant work ethic wheel keeps turning.

Put more concisely, I’d like to continue focusing on the things that matter, and continue getting to know myself.

Thoughts Overdressed

It’s better to avoid overdressing both yourself and your thoughts. If you can communicate the message with a scowl, avoid the monologue.

What is the perfect length of a movie or book review? Generally, most video and blog reviews are too long. I rarely criticize a review for being too short. It’s probably because we like to imprint as much of our own character in the reviews as we can. The review becomes a form of self-expression. That’s fine, I think, because the best critics show their quirks. You can show quirks while still be concise though.

You can easily draw out a joke at the dinner table until it dies, after all.

I’m looking forward to doing more this summer by virtue of doing less. Less exercise, but more effective use of the minutes spent exercising. Less stressing, and therefore more daydreaming. Less indecision, and therefore more creating. Less work hours, and therefore more sleep.

I’m running the Boston marathon next week. I’m looking forward to the event, which I think will be a celebration of being able to do something difficult. I’m also looking forward to not devoting so much energy and resources to such a long and painful burn. I’m glad to say that I’ve run marathons, and I’ll be honored to say I ran the Boston marathon, but at the end of the day, I can’t say running that many miles is “fun.”

I had a dream last night in which I was an NBA basketball player handling the ball at the end of a critical game. I sunk a 3 to the roar of the crowd and my team was up by 10.

Suddenly the coach decided to play the bench though, and a gang of diminutive nerds walked onto the court, singing the song “This is Halloween” from the movie Nightmare before Christmas. They paid no attention to the game at all. The other team made layup after layup and I watched our lead fade. Whatever great game I had lost all meaning.

That’s okay, I thought, because they’re my friends.

And maybe that’s the point. To be with people you genuinely like brings more success than any “win.”

First Impressions

I try not to act too instinctively, though I think my instinct is usually pretty accurate. It isn’t foolproof though. No one’s instinct is completely foolproof. Some of my best friends in life, for example, were people I was initially intimidated by. I had to peel layers off the onion before realizing what there actually was.

So I try to question and challenge my initial impressions to exhaustion. Sometimes I overdo it and I find my mind in a permanent state of indecision. Sometimes I’m still wrong. But then, everyone and everything deserves a fair chance. Better to think things through than to completely misjudge.

Sometimes it takes years for first impressions to change. Sometimes, through those years, views fluctuate back and forth. I’ve had conflicting views on education and politics for my entire adult life. One should reserve the right to change them.

I know that the first impression I imprint on others is rarely one of the person I am. It takes awhile for my sense of humor to emerge. So I try to consider that, too, when forming first impressions.

Maybe in my constant questioning I’ll arrive at a higher truth.

Talk at the Pool

I was coaching a local club swimming team that I help with on Wednesday evenings and found myself talking to an eight-year-old boy, who swims in one of the beginner groups.

He’s especially small and wears board shorts that are long enough to look like pants due to his short legs. He still has those puffy toddler cheeks and squinty eyes that also make him look especially young and somewhat cherubic.

Somehow we were talking about the fast technical race suits that swimmers used at major events until they were eventually banned for being too fast (the “super suits”).

“They’re like shark skin,” I said. “And they can cover your whole body, and the water around you just rolls right off. You fly through the water.”

His eyes grew wide.

“And you wore them?” He asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “For a little bit, before I retired. Then they got banned anyways.”

“But why’d you retire?”

I paused and had to think about that for a moment.

“I finished college. Then there was nothing left to compete in.”

“You don’t have to compete though,” he said. “You can still enjoy it.”

Then he pushed off the wall and started swimming, and I felt a pang of sadness and thought about how damn wise kids can be sometimes.

"I Don't Wanna Die"

The fall season is a bit like life in that it’s both beautiful and painfully ephemeral.

It seems like we are allowed a few weeks to appreciate the vibrant foliage before it desiccates and leaves behind a gaunt assemblage of ghostly spindly bare trees.

I reckon we can feel this way about how our bodies age. There’s a grace period where time affords us some beauty after having weathered the storm of our youths, but eventually the destruction can be merciless, especially if we don’t plan for it.

The cold is starting to creep into the bones and I especially feel it in my right collarbone, which has broken twice. It is a harsh reminder that not all things fully heal.

I find myself thinking of ways to make time slow, which requires discomfort. The sameness of days only makes time accelerate.

I’ll fight my own mortality to the end because frankly, I don’t wanna die.

Fall may be brief, but I’m determined to catch the next one.

A Change in Seasons

Fall is not a good season for minimalists.

There’s a jacket for every slight temperature variation and a layer for every social occasion.

There are shoes for the rain, shoes for hiking, shoes for lounging, and shoes for conducting business.

There are lounge pants for the coffee shop, fatigue pants for the bar, technical pants for a walk, and chino pants for the cubicle.

I’m always a great minimalist in summer. It’s too hot for all of these things.

Then fall hits and I find myself in a vanity fair.