The Cycle

There's flirting and there's groping, and if a sunny day in August is spring's way of flirting then today's weather was definitely the latter.

Essentially the difference between sticking your nose into the jasmine flowers popping up on the fences, and smelling them from two streets over.

Spring is not supposed to be a time period that starts and finishes on certain dates. Spring is those feeling, the moments where cold is replaced by warmth in your heart. Your finger shrivels back down to its normal size like some kind of ironic anti-erection.

Maybe I'm also feeling good because I intentionally avoided reading the news for two and a half days.

Rebutted

It was a sunny, premature-spring day and I went for a brisk walk at lunchtime with a pair of child's crutches.

The reason I had a pair of children's crutches is that I bought them on Monday by accident trying to buy adult-sized crutches. On Sunday I had gone to the chemist to ask if they hired crutches, and the chemist had said no, but she showed me a pair I could buy.

I returned the next day to buy them. I did notice they seemed a bit short, but everything looks short to me and I figured they'd just extend out a bit. There was also a big, athletic looking man on the packaging.

After I got them home and Vanessa opened them it was clear they were children's crutches. I rang the chemist straight away to explain and confirm if I could get a refund. However I was told the manager would be needed to confirm this as the product was opened, and I left my phone number. They never called back.

So before my lunchtime walk I wrapped the crutches up in cling wrap, positioned the label nicely, and set off for the chemist. While I was willing to accept some blame for the situation, I strongly believed I could justify why I should be given a refund. Primarily, because the chemist had shown me the crutches on Sunday and not mentioned that they were children's crutches. I had some secondary justifications, such as that the packaging had already been broken (albeit not removed completely) before purchase; that a matter of torn packaging was something that the chemist could rectify with the supplier if it came to it; and the resale value of the crutches was not diminished considering they weren't used and the type of product they were (as well as the quality of the cling wrap job).

Yet as the shining sun warmed my exposed forearms I felt my enteric nervous system firing as it encouraged my stomach to digest faster, and I realised I was nervous. After all, I was heading for a conflict and even I knew I was not completely in the right. There could be scenes. I might never get my $52.95 back.

I glanced up at the top of a tree which contrasted against the blue sky and the bright, yellow chemist branding, and I contextualised the significance of this moment in the overall universe (which may or may not be a simulation). This confrontation meant nothing to anyone other than me and the pharmacist manager. It was a zero sum game that I'd already paid to play, and now had a chance to win. I realised, I wasn't anxious. I was excited! How many opportunities in life - outside your imagination - do you have for actual, robust debate with real value consequences? The internet is meaningless. Compilers and interpreters are frustratingly infallible. Clients are always right. But this moment, now, was a chance for my brain to process all the inputs it could, spin it in my birthday-month mousse-cake powered sapient mind, and win or lose. Worst case, I end up with a pair of children's crutches. (And possibly end up on social media tagged as a "Karen".)

I had a friend in primary school whose mum is called Karen. She was nice, and sometimes I used to see her driving out of her driveway on my way to the bus in the late 90's and I always waved and she waved back. I hope she is not aware of the Karen meme.

Anyway, I burst into the chemist with my glad-wrapped crutches. I scanned the QR code. I walked to the counter and said, "I need a refund on these crutches, because they are children's crutches!"

"Okay," the checkout person said.

She took the crutches and scanned my credit card to trigger a refund.

Never has total victory also felt like such a loss.

At least I could put that money I got back towards my $2,000 car service...

One (Trimester) Down

My recovery from labral tear repair and biceps tendon reattachment has progressed okay, one quarter of a planetary orbit post-op. Although a quarter of an orbit seems an appropriate signifier considering my current level of external rotation. While I am able to pick up weights of about 10kg from ground to shoulder height, my plan of developing supreme leg strength through a rehab period regime of back squats has been dashed by my inability as of yet to be able to get my upright forearm past the line of my body. At least I'm getting really good at goblet squats.

Day to day activities are mostly back to normal. I've ridden my bike and driven the car and pruned some trees and doing any of these for long periods needs a beer afterwards. At the twelve week mark my rehab program was progressed to include a whole new array of light/no weight stretches, poses and exercises. No existing exercises were removed from the program. If you ever need to rehab a joint I strongly recommend against ball and socket types. You really take for granted the range of movement available during flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, medial rotation and lateral rotation. There's plenty of time to reminisce about it when you're spending your free time in the evenings lying on an exercise mat with your arm up your back and your opposite knee cocked and then rolling on top of your own arm in the hope that six months from now this painful activity is what permits you to apply sunscreen to your upper back by yourself.

Post surgery rehab truly is the least rewarding form of resistance training. Cold sweat runs down your forehead, your muscles ache and beg off, the minutes pass by and the only reason your knuckles are close to where they're supposed to be is because your entire wrist is flexed skywards. I have four booklets of movements and stretches. I barely remember how much pain I was in before the scalpel came for me, but it wasn't as much as this.

But I'm not complaining. At least this dictionary of shoulder exercises gives me something to structure a workout around. Things are getting better every day week. Nothing pops when I cut up vegetables anymore. The surgeon and physio claim that I'm half way through. I'm never playing social basketball again.

Horizons 2

Napoleon Clymamite

I considered expanding this to all the media I consume, but I don't think a series of essays about my feelings during the NBA playoffs would have revealed anything insightful.

At some point in the past I read an overview of The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells and the description motivated me to add it to my "Want to Read" list. Another while later I was browsing the library site in preparation for lockdown and checked it out. A short while after that I started reading it without much recollection of what had led me to this point.

As a non-reproducing, perpetual tourist of a human my initial thoughts were that I didn't want to write about reading The Uninhabitable Earth.

The onslaught of catastrophe, doom and predictions of death and destruction which immediately begin this book hit me with none of my defences up. Wallace-Wells is measured yet relentless in his summarising of the linear and potentially exponential systematic failures and disasters that the near future holds for the planet due to climate change and potential feedback loops impacting our ecological systems. He lists numbers of potential deaths like he's rattling off victim counts at the battle of Borodino.

The first half was scary, but the second is more terrifying. After his overview of the effects we transition into the causes and the ways in which humanity could take steps to counteract the problems we have collectively set upon ourselves. Unfortunately the answers are not black and white simplifications like reducing plastic straws and increasing renewable energy and eating less beef. The nature and structure of humanity itself needs to be overhauled. He makes a strong argument that the economic philosophies, nation states, neoliberalism, and cognitive biases that affect us all will never allow us as a species to overcome what we have created by converting fossil fuels into economic growth.

After what we have seen with COVID19 so far I'm inclined to agree with him.

I've always subscribed to the hope that technology will be the way humanity will overcome the challenges of climate change. Given the above, combined with the warning in this book from studies on the impact to intelligence - from air pollution, to higher temperatures, and what we know about the impact of diseases on our brains - predicts a future where we may further lose the ability to think our way to safety. How will we invent new technology when heat and carbon in the air makes us dumber?

Ironically, the root cause of the problem - the climate - will be easier to manage than humans.

David Wallace-Wells is definitely smarter than I am. Whether he is also more pessimistic than I am will be the real test.

While he may be an expert in most things climate and sociopolitical, I'm not sure if is as well read on history as I am.

When Napoleon was crowned Emperor of France in 1804 there were only a billion people living on Earth. Now there's eight times that many. In 1813 when Napoleon's Grande Armée was freezing in retreat from Russia there were 150 glaciers in Montana's Glacier National Park. Today there are just 25.

Having listened to a 36 hour audiobook about the life of Napoleon, I believe that Bonaparte seems like the right person for the job of solving climate change. His experience of introducing rational reforms in direct challenge to existing institutes (such as universal civil laws, the central banking system, and the metric systems) as the unchallenged head of state for a widely encompassing empire has to be seen as admirable. Although he would probably put one of his less intelligent brothers in charge of pandemics, or get distracted by an opera singer, which may reduce his effectiveness.

Instead of focusing on technology for carbon capture and green energy we should be finding a solution for cloning Napoleon. He was a mathematician, and pragmatist, and he brought scientists with him to the battlefields of Egypt. I believe he would instantly recognise climate change for the threat it is, and do his thing working long hours, writing many letters, and going to war with those who opposed his carbon tax. It wouldn't be a utopia. I'm sure he would make mistakes. Yes this means living under a global dictator. But there are many worse politicians and autocrats in power at the moment.

I'd like to live to see that.

Olympic Medals Presentation

With hindsight I've realised that using each Olympics as a milestone at which I ignore the success and heartbreak of athletes and instead reflect only about my own life in a long block of prose has been misguided narcissism. Why have I been waffling on about my own achievements randomly, and not instead ranking them and awarding medals to myself?

It's been four years since Rio. I mean, technically five but covid has that effect on things. A lot has changed.

Gold

I've equalled the world record for love and having a dog for the longest amount of time between Olympics. I went on an amazing four week trip to the Pacific Northwest and hiked through nature that's hopefully still kicking a few Olympics from now. We moved house, switched cars. That's been like shedding a skin - all new extremities, but unchanged at the core.

Silver

Bronze

Participation Trophy

DNQ

My goals for next olympics.
There’s less than three years until the Paris Olympics, so I’m not sure how much I can really achieve. But that will also be the month before I turn forty, and knowing my history with procrastination and success I suspect another 750 words will be possible in August 2024.

I’d like to be vaccinated. I want one foot into a retirement plan that covers finances, climate change, and something to keep me occupied for the rest of my life. I’d appreciate both feet on foreign soil again, even better would be to do that as the entourage of a certain wifey athlete. I want a house that isn’t cold in winter. I’d like to go camping.