Ten Minutes at a Time.

This afternoon I’m supposed to start physical therapy on my bum shoulder and I am really excited about it because — I guess — I am middle aged now and that’s the kind of thing I get excited about.

Man, that was tough to type: middle aged.

I have avoided thinking about it that way.

Where have the years gone?

And of course, I know. I’ve had a pretty fantastic life so far. It has been a little inscrutable at times, but I’m proud of (most of) it.

Back to physical therapy though: I’m not sure I ever really understood physical therapy until I had to do it in Portland about three years ago. That was for the same shoulder, but the cause was different. I think I thought at the time that it was going to be sort of like getting a massage, and parts of it were like that, but most of it was lots of small and not that individually different little silly exercises. The guy would be all like, “Here, squeeze this rubber ball for ten minutes.” And I was all like, “Sure dude, whatever.” And then I would squeeze the rubber ball for ten minutes and then he’d come back and be like, “Use your hands to pedal this upright bike contraption for ten minutes.” And I’d be like, “This seems undignified, but whatever dude.” And so I would pedal the upright bike contraption for ten minutes and then he’d come back and be like, “How does your shoulder feel?” And I’d be all like, “OMG, it does actually feel better!”

I have always had a little bit of respect for traditional medicine and things like Reflexology, not because I’m an anti-science magical-crystal hippie, but just the opposite; some of these things do have very long histories stretching back to before we had upright bike contraptions and if you think about the traditional medicines of lots of indigenous people whose cultures were doing their thing for hundreds or thousands of years before what we think of as “modern medicine” came along, you can imagine how enough trial and error over a long enough period of time would likely produce at least SOME usable results. 

One of the benefits we have accrued by existing when we do, is that we have so much built up human knowledge of so many kinds that we can rely on and so many people who know so much about different parts of it. Like, in the Before Times, I could get on an airplane and I didn’t need to know how to fly the airplane, because the pilot knew how to do that. This is a concept called ‘Specialization of Knowledge’. The idea is that over time, the increasing complexity of our world has required that people specialize in particular spheres of knowledge. 

That’s why I didn’t need to understand Physical Therapy, I just needed access to someone who did. And oh man, I am so excited to get access to one again later today.

Wish me luck! I get to pedal the upright bike contraption again.

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