I was working on another post that is turning out to be a lot more difficult then I had anticipated, so I thought Id take a break to do something a little easier. A big part of my post on world of Warcraft is the movie revolver, and in it I mention that it really isn't a well made film. It lacks subtlety in how it deliver's its message, and while I still agree that is exactly what I needed at the time, its still the major flaw of that film. Well then is there a film in my opinion that portrays this message with better execution? Yes, probably several, but one in particular stands out and that is The Duellists, and here's the trailer.
The Duellists was the fist feature film of director Ridley Scott, who is more famously known for his films Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator, all of which I also enjoy. It takes place in Napoleonic France, and tells the historic story of two officers in the french Grande Armee. One of the officers, Feraud played by Harvey Keitel, takes offense at a perceived slight from another officer, d'Hubert played by Keith Carradine, and decides the only way to get justice is to challenge him to a duel to the death. The pair are evenly matched and it ends indecisively and is then followed up with several more contests as they cross paths through out their lives.
This is the trap of the ego, it creates unnecessary conflict. Feraud is only able to see the situation from his perspective, that Hubert has insulted him and refuses to admit responsibility. However if he were able to see things from Hubert's perspective he would realize that Hubert, who doesn't even know who Feraud is, has no reason to insult him and that it's clearly an accident. Hubert isn't completely absolved of guilt in this situation either, as he is bound by honor to accept the duels. The idea of honor is a tricky one, in that ideally its used to uphold the reputable treatment of others, both friend and foe. However in this case it seems to cause more harm then good, from its misapplication by both Feraud and Hubert.
Im going to talk about the ending next, so if you don't want it spoiled skip this section. The climax of the film is a final duel between the two, this time with pistols. It's not how I'd imagine a traditional pistol duel, you know back to back take ten paces turn and fire. It's more a dangerous game as Feraud stalks Hubert through a wooded area around a destroyed castle. Feraud discharges both of his pistols and misses, from which Hubert takes the opportunity to catch Feraud unarmed at point blank range. Hubert could easily kill Feraud, thus permanently ending their rivalry, however he decides to spare Feraud's life under the condition that they have no further contact, including no further duels. This is a risk by Hubert, as its possible Feraud could go back on his word and attempt to duel Hubert again, which could result in Hubert's death. Why? Hubert never actually wanted to kill Feraud, he was bound by his own code of honor to respond to the duels. Killing Hubert would actually be a failure of his own personal beliefs, and ironically enough a victory for Feraud, as he was the one that wanted the duels to be to the death. The final scene of the film involves Feraud gazing out across a landscape as the sun rises in the distance. The camera slowly zooms out to give the effect of an expanding horizon, to symbolize the metaphorical expansion of Feraud's horizons as he is no longer trapped in his misguided quest for revenge.
I think it's only fair since I started this post by pointing out the flaws in revolver that I should point out the flaws in this film as well. It's been awhile since I've seen it, so there's probably more I just cant remember, but certainly it's Harvey Keitel. He's not a bad actor, and gives a good performance in this film, but his accent is just not meant for period piece roles. Don't get me wrong, its not Kevin Costner as Robin Hood bad, but its certainly distracting. I ended my revolver discussion unsure if I should recommend it or not, and I guess now it's time to decide the same for this. Both of these movies have had an important positive impact on my life, and on that grounds I have to recommend them. However if you aren't really in a place where you're ready for some introspection fuel, and thus these movies would be purely judged on their entertainment value, then I wouldn't recommend them. I personally enjoyed the duelists because I find history interesting, but I'm not sure the story can carry itself outside of the setting its told in. Ultimately the decision is yours, if anyone ever does read this Id be interested to hear if any other films had a similar impact on you.
Around the age of eight I decided I wanted to join a soccer team. I had played soccer at school before and I guess I liked it enough that I wanted to play in a league, so I joined the local community house league. The first team I was ever on was called the spiders, I don't know why though, none of the other house league teams I was on had a name, but the first year it did. Our team jerseys were bright green, you know that well known spider colour. It was mostly just for fun at that age, no one really took it competitively yet. I enjoyed it so I stuck with it next year, which was about the same, this time maroon jerseys and no team name though. A lot of the kids were the same and I actually made a few friends, one of them even invited me to their birthday party that year. I had one more year with this team and this coach, the last one were the blue team. The next year however I was now in middle school and things would be different.
My middle school had a competitive soccer team, that had tryouts, so I thought I'd give it a try. Now I'm not going to lie, I was a fat kid. I remember in the second grade one day they weighed everyone for whatever reason. Everyone before me got their weight and it was all in the area of 30kg, then it was my turn, I weighed 44kg; no one else was in the forties. I could see how this would be embarrassing to some people, but I honestly didn't care. I was big too, so no one ever teased me or bullied me, I never really even thought about it. During this try out though, it became clear it was a problem and it was the first time ever I felt self conscious about it. One of the first trials was an endurance race, and I came in dead last. After the first week the first round of cuts was posted and I wasn't on the list of people that would continue onto the next round. At the time I was pretty upset about it, but it didn't take long for me to get over it. I would just continue with house league soccer and not worry about it again until next year.
This year house league was starting to get competitive. I was eleven now and starting to take soccer more seriously. I knew I wasn't the fastest player so I started practicing my tackling to make up for it, and I was actually starting to get good at it. Up until then I had tried to make my tackles when the ball was farthest away from the player dribbling it, but then I realized the best time was actually to make your move as soon as the ball left their foot. This way it would be moving away from them and towards me, giving me the more time to get to it before the did. This turned out to be quite effective and I started to become significantly good at defense. My other problem was my kicking technique. Now I was actually a pretty powerful kicker, maybe even the most on the team. The year before one of our games was a tie and went to a shootout. I was selected to shoot first because my coach also recognized I could kick pretty hard. I had never practiced penalty shots before so I just decided to blast it as hard as I could and just aim to get it above the goalie. Of course that didn't work, I hit the crossbar, it bounced straight down and it didn't go in. My problem was I kicked with my toe, and not with the laces of my shoe, so I decided this year to fix this and learn to kick with my laces. It was tough, I certainly lost some power, but I could definitely see why it was better. You just have so much more control over where the ball goes. When game day rolled round for the first time ever we had a starting lineup. Every other year we'd just rotate everyone around every break, whoever started on the field didn't really matter you'd be substituted soon after. My coach had seen Id been working hard to improve and so I started every game. I could see other people on my team has also become more serious as well and all that extra work paid off because my team ended up winning the championship that year.
Next year along came the tryouts for my middle school team again. I was confident that I had made big improvements since last year and I had a real shot of making the team. The endurance run came and I finished dead last again. I knew that was going to happen, but I'd make it up in the skills competitions. In the first important one everyone on the offense lined up on one side and everyone on the defense lined up on the other. We took turns doing two on two attacking drills, and in every one of my attempts I successfully tackled the offense and recovered the ball. Now to be fair one time one of the players very obviously accidently kicked the ball right at me, but all the rest were genuine tackles. I felt very confident in my chances, but again after the first week I was not selected. All the hard work I had made had amounted to nothing. I was upset again but I thought you know why do I care I have more fun playing house league soccer anyways let's just keep doing that anyways. This year however house league was going to be very different.
First off I was on a new team, none of my friends or even any of the players from my previous four teams were there; it was a completely new group of players and a new coach. We started practicing and I was doing good again, it looked like it was going to be a similar season to last year. It was not. When the first game day arrived the coach started calling out the starting line up, I was not called. I didn't even play the entire first half. I thought maybe Id get a chance next game but it was the same. They ended up only playing me once the game was already decided and it didn't matter. I didn't give up at first I thought if I worked hard in practice Id get my shot eventually, and I did so the entire season, but it didn't change anything. It became clear to me I was always going to be the fat kid now and that was going to overshadow anything else I would do. I didnt even make any friends on my team this year, which was really the worst part. I decided not to go to end of season pizza party, and that I was done with soccer for good.
The next year I was now in high school and my high school did have a soccer team. I did consider joining as I did actually enjoy team sports, but then another friend of mine wanted to join the football team and I thought what the hell I'll join that instead. I never missed playing soccer on a team, it was kind of fun playing it again in gym class, but after a few years of playing football, my kicking power went way down and it would have just been not practical to even attempting getting back into soccer. I will admit though even as an adult I still have an appreciation for the sport and watch it on tv now and then.
Usually by the end of these I try to have some kind of take away lesson I learned, but in this case it just never went anywhere and I'm fine with that. Sometimes things just don't work out and it's not your fault, maybe I could have done more and persisted, but soccer just wasn't worth it in the long run. I guess it did help me end up in a sport I actually did like and set a good baseline for what to expect from myself to make sure I had the best chance of success in a competitive environment. This is now the second post I've talked about football so I guess I better talk about that soon, if not next.
This post really did not end up having a satisfying ending, which I guess was bound to happen considering I don't plan the content of these out in advance at all. I aim for more of just a constant stream of consciousness, so when I start writing I don't stop until the post is completely finished. I believe this gives me the most authentic portrayal of how I feel about these events, and thats what Im aiming for. The problem with this one was I just didn't know how I feel about soccer anymore, and unlike my previous posts, did not come to an resolution by writing about it. Maybe that's not even a problem, but right now it doesn't feel like I've accomplished anything here, so I'll just have to wait and see how I feel about this. I will say though after the back pain posted I decided to create the titles of my next eight or so posts, including the last three. I can tell you I have pretty strong feelings about the remaining posts, so this shouldn't happen again anytime soon. I just wanted to get all my early life stories out of the way before I start talking about bigger events in my life. More to come soon, bye.
Alright this is going to be a nerdy one, so I apologize, but I promise if you stick with it I'm going to talk about Jason Statham so it's not all dorky. The first idea that probably comes to your mind is the typical online gamer story, I played too much to the point that it negatively impacted my life, and then I eventually quit and went outside to ride my bicycle. Well there probably was some of that, it's not that kind of story.
So yes, I played world of warcraft, for a couple of years even. I first started when it was in open beta. I had played most Blizzard titles before, starcraft, diablo 1&2, etc. I had also played warcraft 2 and 3, so I was somewhat familiar with the canon. When I had heard they were making an mmo I was pretty excited. I had some experience with mmos before as well. I had played asheron's call for a few months, but I had never really meshed with anyone there and the game wasn't good enough to carry me alone. I had also played Neocron, which I had enjoyed quite a bit, maybe I'll write a post about that sometime.
Anyways back to world of warcraft. Right from the beginning I was stunned. It had looked so much better then any rpg I had played before. The world was stunning, and exploring It would become one of my favourite activities. The game's map started completely covered and the player had to reveal it by visiting each part of the map, a feature which sadly they abandoned in later versions, the maps just starts fully revealed.
Up until this point I had mostly just played the game by myself, but I was getting to the point where I was ready to start running dungeons. Now dungeons typically needed to be run by groups of five, so I had to start interacting with people in the looking for group channels. I ran a few until finally I ran one with a group of people that just clicked with me and we became friends. We ran a few more dungeons over the next few days and eventually they invited me to join their guild. I met even more people in this group and we continued to run dungeons until the majority of us finally made it to the max level. By this point the majority of us had completed the top level dungeons enough that the only really opportunity for a new challenge in the game was to star raiding. This is really where the game took a bad turn for me.
Now I had another friend who also played WoW, but I had originally known them from playing the game counter strike. They had a much stronger mmo background from playing the game everquest, and they were clearly much better at WoW then me. They had a bit of an attitude of superiority about it, and to be fair they were always respectful with me, it was still clear that they had a disdain for people that weren't as good. I eventually adopted this bad habit as well and this is where everything started to go wrong.
The character class I played was a mage, and my guild had one other mage. We never really interacted much early on, in a five man group you don't typically bring two of the same class, so there was no reason for us to ever group. Now one of our, and many other players, past time during downtime was to duel each other. It's just a system for a friendly one on one fight that ends when someone reaches one hitpoint. I had several duels with a warrior in our guild and I had won most of them, not for any particular reason other then the mage class just had a natural advantage over the warrior class. The warrior mentioned how he usually beat the other mage in the guild and how I was much better. This is exactly what I did not need to hear, and would be the beginning of a terrible relationship with the other mage, and it was going to be entirely my fault.
As I mentioned it was around this time my guild started raiding. Now raiding is different from dungeons in that instead of the normal five man groups, the group size is now forty. This means me and the other mage both have to attend these raids or we won't have enough people. Now the rewards from these raids are better equipment upgrades for your characters. Every Time your group defeats a boss a random piece of 'loot' is dropped, and each piece belongs to a set for a particular class. What this means is any time a piece of mage loot drops its now between me and this other mage on who gets it. This combined with my negative opinion of the other mage really started to make my resent them, and apparently it showed.
I remember one night I must have given them enough attitude that they had finally had enough and in front of everyone they told me off pretty thoroughly , and I can't say I didn't have it coming. I reacted the normal way I reacted to conflict, I just shut down, I didn't even say anything back. I don't remember what happened next, but I remember what happened the next day. I started thinking about it and they were right. Why was I acting like this? This person had done nothing wrong to me, I barely even knew that but I had already formed an opinion of them based on nothing of importance. I had decided clearly it was the game that was problem and I should stop playing it. I was wrong though, it wasn't the game it was me.
I ended up taking a solid three months off of the game. It was during this time when I saw the movie Revolver and it had quite a big impact on me. Now for those of you not familiar it was one of the director Guy Ritchie's gangster movies. This one though had a key difference, it delved deeply into the idea of the ego, it even contained interviews with some 'experts' in the credits. I put experts in quotation because one of them was Deepak Chopra, who could be considered a controversial figure today. Personally I found his interview for the film very enlightening. He's on twitter if you would like more context on this.
Unfortunately this is considered to be Guy's worst film, and I can see why. The message is really just beaten over you head. It lacks any kind of subtlety that a finely crafted film would portray the message in a way the audience can learn it through the experience of the main character (Jason Statham, see I told you Id mention him!). Well while this makes for a poor film, it was a time in my life when I needed this message beaten over my head, and so I'm glad it was the way that it was. If you're interested here's the trailer for Revolver, although it feels very disingenuous to the actual subject matter of the movie, probably on purpose. It may be worth watching the whole film, I haven't seen it since so I can honestly say if its still relevant today, but I think it might.
I had realized that it was my ego that was making me resent this person who I had no real reason to resent, not the game, and in my time off I had lost all those feelings. I thought maybe I could come back to the game and give it another shot. For awhile it was all good again, I had fun, people were happy to see me and vice versa. I thought everything was going to work out. Then the first raid happened.
I remember it very clearly, it was Onyxia, which I had never done before (all the previous raids were Molten Core, shout out to the fellow WoWers). The other mage was there, and I attempted to great him in a somewhat joking friendly manner. They were not having it one bit. In the time I had taken off, they had been grinding, getting geared up, and well surpassed me. Now the tables were turned and I was the one on the bottom, and they were just waiting for their turn to treat me as poorly as possible. I had created a monster. Before I met this person they had none of my trademark superior attitude, but now they had embraced it with the sole purpose of unleashing it on me as I had on them. I couldn't even be mad about it, it was clearly my fault this person had become like this. I decided then and there I was never going to do another raid again.
It wasn't long after that I quit the game again. There wasn't much widespread use of out of game communications then so I never heard from any of these people again, which I think is a shame. I have played other online games since then and become part of communities that extend past the game they're created around, and really that's the best part of online gaming. The real shame though is what I did to this person. Part of me thinks I should have stayed, and tried to help them see what I saw, but Im probably the last person they'd listen to at that point, and I can't blame them. In the end they just have to make their own decisions and I wish them the best. I have done you a great disservice and you have my deepest apologies.
I did end up making another attempt at playing WoW after a much longer break, and had some fun, ran some dungeons again, met a new group. However once this group also started approaching the raiding stage of the game I just couldn't do it, and quit before even attempting another raid. At this point in the game the burning crusade expansion was just about to come out next month as well. Many years later I've tried a few free trial weekends again, but the game had changed so much by then. The leveling system was now so much easier, which meant all the low level zones were already empty, and so Id have to play by myself up until the end game content, which frankly just isn't fun. They had also introduced a dungeon finder system that would automatically pair you up with a group to run a dungeon. This was a lot quicker then the old looking for group channel I mentioned above, but it changed the changed the game in another way I didn't like.
I remember seeing a news article about a famous incident at a BlizzCon where some fan asked an executive of the company about possibly adding a 'classic wow' version of the game for fans of the original. He made a snarky remark about how you wouldn't want to go back to waiting around for hours trolling the old looking for group channel, well actually yes, yes I would. The looking for group channel was slow, but it forced you to meet new people and sometimes even build lasting friendships out of the necessity that finding dungeon groups was difficult. The new dungeon finder system turned every dungeon into a tinder one night stand, where'd you never see these people again; mostly because they were from different servers and it was not possible to interact with them outside this one dungeon instance. Well it turns out that questioner will get the last laugh, because wow eventually did make a classic mode, and it came out last month. I've had a few invitations from people in online communities I frequent to try it out, maybe it's time to give it another go. Thanks Guy.
This is the story of the first time I ever quit something significant. You'd think since it was the first I should have written it first, but the band story really had a much more significant impact on me. Id quit other things obviously, somethings I had put quite a lot of time into. That isn't to say this story isn't siginficant, it was the just first time the switch ever flipped. What I mean by that was I had no intention to quit swimming lessons right up until it happened, then I immediately knew I never wanted to do it again. I can't say how long it actually took but I knew before I had even left the pool that I was never coming back, and I didnt even have the slightest feeling of that when I arrived at the pool that day. Anyways enough preamble here we go.
I started taking swimming lessons when I was a young child, probably around six to eight. They had a coloured level system. Now I had done them for a few years, but I definitely quit before I was ten, and I definitely didn't start them before I was five. However I did seven different classes, so I must have done multiple in a single year, but I can't honestly remember. Anyways the first three were yellow, orange and red, they were in the small pool. After that I graduated on to the full olympic sized pool for maroon, grey, blue, and then the final colour I attempted, green.
Up until now all the classes were basically just to teach you to swim. Now that may seem obvious, but what I mean is practical swimming, the techniques most effective to move you through water in a way you are least likely to drown. Green on the other hand is now geared more on how to teach you how to endurance swim. Think olympic swimming, not at the beach swimming. To be honest I can't even remember most of what we did, but I do remember two main lessons that influenced the results more then anything else. The first of which was the deep dive.
Now this particular pool had an end for diving with a three meter board, and at that end the pool was very deep, easily thirty feet. The lesson for today would be to just swim down to the bottom and back up. It wasnt so much a lesson as just go and do it. I must have looked hesitant because the instructor then said you don't have to if you don't want to, cool I dont want to, I'm not even going to try. Was I scared? Probably, but the reason I chose not to was very clear. Even diving to the bottom of the five feet deep shallow end would give me a headache. I didn't know how or why, as an adult I now know there was/is something wrong with my sinuses. I still to this day get sinus headaches, it's just pain in my forehead at a single point directly above one of my eyes. I also use to frequently get nose bleeds, and I was probably correct in assuming they were related. In hindsight the worst part about it probably wasn't that I didn't do it, but that I didn't even try, I didn't even get in the pool.
The second lesson was the endurance swim. We had to do eight laps, with as much time as we needed, the only stipulation was that you had to use a different stroke for at least one of the eight laps. Now each lap is 100 meters, so eight of them in a row is actually quite a feat, and I doubt anyone in the classes had ever attempted to swim more than a pool length at a time. The idea behind this exercise was just to see what it felt like, and to do it casually. The point of the two different stroke rule was just to prevent everyone from doing all eight laps with the backstroke, because its just the easiest and not really a challenge to slowly back stroke the entire thing. I on the other hand did not like the backstroke at all. I didn't have goggles so with every stroke water would drip off my arms and hit me in the eyes, and it stung like hell. There was no way I was voluntarily going to do any more backstroke then I needed to. I elected to do the front stroke for the first four, a backstroke lap to take a break, then finish the last three front stroke. Now the front stroke is inherently faster than the backstroke, but I decided to really put the extra effort in and swim as fast as I could. I blew through all eight laps way faster than everyone, it wasn't even close. When I got out my instructor didn't believe I was done, they were very skeptical I had done all eight, but I counted them and I was very sure I had done them all. I stood there for another few minutes before the second person finished and the rest slowly trickled in after that. It would be easy to see why someone would think I did not complete them all, they all finished in a similar time frame and I was way ahead. Why would a ten year old try to go full Michael Phelps on their first attempt at long distance swimming? I couldn't tell you, but I did it and I never regretted it.
Finally came the last class where'd be given our final grade. There wasn't a test or anything the instructor just would call out the names of all the people that passed and they'd get their badges. When the time came for this the instructor announced that three people had failed. There wasn't even an inkling in my mind that I could have failed. I was clearly a strong swimmer, if not the strongest in the class. The names were called and gone, and mine was not called. I don't honestly remember what happened now, but I remember I decided then and there I was done with swimming for good; as I mentioned earlier, the switch had flipped. I knew how to swim, there was no practical purpose to continuing the lessons really, and I didnt know about competitive swimming or really have any interest in it.
At the time I was quite angry with my instructor, but I didn't say anything to them I just left. Initially I had though the deciding factor was that they thought I cheated at the endurance race, but it was almost certainly the dive. As an adult now I realize now that they were just a teenager and it really isn't their fault. It's almost certainly better to fail someone who won't even attempt a deep swim, something that may be required to save themselves or someone else in a drowning situation, then let them pass the course. I'm still not certain though and in hindsight I probably should have just gone and spoken to my instructor and asked them why, especially if I intended to repeat the class, but I already knew there was a 0% chance I was going to do that so why bother.
Do I regret quitting this now? Not really. In high school my school had a swim team, I had considered trying out for about 30 seconds before reaffirming my decision that I still don't care about swimming at all. I had already moved on to new sports and never looked back. In between those two events I had one last swim test. I had gone to a summer camp in middle school that had a pool day at the same swimming pool. Everyone was required to take a swimming test down the side lane of the big pool. If you made it a quarter of the way you wouldnt have to wear a life jacket, if you made it halfway you were allowed in the big pool. I was one of three people to swim the entire length of the pool. There was no need to for the test, I just wanted to see if I could still do it, and it was effortless. I haven't swam a full lap (length of the pool and back) since then, maybe it's time to get back in pool. I don't even own a bathing suit, but I can still remember a time when I did actually enjoy going to swimming lessons.
I was originally going to write about something else but then I decided maybe a positive story would be a better choice for my second attempt. As I'm writing this, I realize most of this information is pretty irrelevant, I'm just writing the entire story for my own sake, so if you just want to see what worked skip down to the video. I really can't believe how long this turned out to be.
I used to play football when I was in high school. At some point I'm going to write a post about that, but just a bit about that for now. I was 16 at the time this took place, and it was during one of my football practices we were doing blocking sled drills. For those not familiar I will explain, this is what our particular sled somewhat looked like, although much older and rusting, paint chipped, etc :
Now the idea is five people line up, each about a foot in front of one of those pads (ours weren't people shaped just a boring old rectangle), get down in a three point stance, and then at the same time drive their whole body into it and push it down the field. It sucks, it sucks alot. No one wants to do it but it's just the best way as a lineman to improve at blocking. Now the day before I had been paintballing and my lower back was already sore, along with my arms, legs etc, so this was going to take an already tough activity and make it worse. I had no idea how much worse.
It started out as usual, nothing out of the ordinary, but then after a few tries a distinct pain in the center of my lower back. After every run the pain grew and grew. I was starting to get to the point where I can't stand up under my own power, I have to use my arms pressing on the back of my hips just to stand up straight. After a while the defensive coach starts yelling at me that I'm slowing everybody down. During the next attempt the pain was so bad I have to quit. They go another few rounds then we walk back to the the field with the rest of the team. What I don't know is during this break my back had started to swell. The offensive coach asks why Im walking funny and I tell him my back is sore. He has me bend side to side, its difficult but not particularly painful; twist back and forth, that's all fine; then he says okay bend forward. At around half way down the jolt of pain that hits me is the most excruciating feeling I've ever felt in my entire life. Worse then the time I broke my ankle (the second worst), worse then the time I sprained my shoulder (the third worst). I screamed, loud. I was not expecting that, it was way worse than anything I had felt on the sled earlier. They both laughed, oh yeah bone bruise the offensive coach said. Now to this day I don't even know what a bone bruise is, or if I did or did not have one, but I know that was beginning of several more incidents of back pain.
The next day at practice it was still incredibly sore. I can't run, I can't bend forward at all, I can barely do anything. When we start doing line skirmages the coach just asks me to stand there so the defense can at least run around me. One time the defensive end accidently makes contact with me, it was incredibly painful. This continues for the entire week. Finally on game day its recovered enough that I can at least get in a stance and make very weak attempts at blocks. At one point I take a bad twist during a block and am floored, the pain is incredible, I have to be helped off the field and am out for the rest of the game. It was at this point I decided I needed to see a doctor.
After the game I head to the hospital and get it examined, have xrays taken, etc. There's no fractures, no slipped discs, anything; the X-ray is completely clean. The doctor says it must me a soft tissue injury and the best thing to do would be to see a physiotherapist. I don't remember how I found this particular physio place but clearly I did not do enough research beforehand. The first appointment was alright, they asked me to put on some shorts they had. I don't know why I remember this but they were hornets basketball shorts, I don't even know where (or why) someone would even get those. They test out my flexibility and then when they ask me to bend forward the therapist said "what that's it?", yep I couldn't even get halfway to my waist level.
They decide for treatment to try ultrasound and some other machine that basically just gives you repeated small electric shocks, I can't remember what its called. The ultrasound is just weird, they put gel all over the area and just smear it around with this plastic device on a cord. The electric shock thing is just some pads they stick on you then they put a giant ice bag on top of it to relieve swelling, then they leave you there to get shocked for twenty minutes. Honestly I think what helped the most out all of that was the ice. The therapist said some people actually enjoy that electric shock machine, yeah well not me.
After about two appointments my therapist starts canceling my appointments with less then a days notice. They eventually just start scheduling me with a new therapist, but after another couple appointments this one also starts rescheduling my appointments with less than a days notice. I get so annoyed with it I quit after not even doing half the recommended appointments. At this point Im pain free, and the football season is over anyways. There was one more game after the above mentioned one, which I did play in without incident. I honestly don't know if my further back troubles are related to this whole injury, or if completing all the therapy would have fully fixed it, but I can say the pain did return and in the exact same place.
Fast forward about six to seven years. I don't remember how it started but the back pain is back. Going from a sitting to a standing position is incredibly painful and takes a good minute of effort. After standing up for awhile it becomes bearable again. Anything that requires leaning over is painful. The thing I remember that was the worst was washing my hands. If I could lean over and support myself with one hand I was fine, but you can't just wash one hand at a time. Just that slightest lean forward to put your hands under a faucet was enough to really set it off. At home I starting getting on my knees to wash my hands, in public I just rinse one at a time, no soap, yeah gross I know. Every night I ice it for an hour, and it feels fine, but by the end of the next day it's incredibly painful again. This pain lasts for several weeks, until it finally dies down. I was able to manage it, but I don't know what caused it. This particular bout was almost certainly inflammation, anti inflammatories helped and ice helped more than anything else. The symptoms and the treatment that worked are similar to my previous injury so it's pretty safe to say this was related, but why would it just flare up out of nowhere? I didnt and dont know, at least it wasn't as bad as the first time.
Episode three: revenge of the sit, fast forward a few more years. Im sitting at my computer desk for many hours working hard, okay I was playing a video game. My eyesight had been getting worse, so I found myself frequently leaning in to see my monitor better, especially to read small text. I think the leaning forward was the major contributor to this. After several hours I noticed my lower back was starting to get sore, it wasn't that bad so I just ignored it, but it definitely persisted. I really didn't think that much of it and it was getting slowly worse, but never even got close to the point where it was unbearable. Then out of nowhere it started spasming.
I had never experienced a back spasm before of any kind, and for anyone else that hasn't let me tell you, its number four on the most painful list I had created above. I immediately react by attempting to stand up, but I have to use my arms to lift myself. Luckily for me my desk is near my bed so I just launched myself at my bed. I landed face up with my feet still on the floor but from the thighs up i'm on the bed. The spasming subsides now, but as soon as I try to move it starts again. All I can do is move my neck, if I even try to lift my shoulders it starts again. I spend about an hour like this, my feet both go completely asleep, until I finally can get the rest of my body on the bed with only mild spasms. I spend another six hours like this without even being able to turn over. There was a genuine concern I wasn't even going to be able to go to the bathroom. Finally I'm able to get up, still fairly painfully but without spasms and move around. Not long after standing I notice my back is getting sore again, similar to before the first spasm. I drive to to the drug store and by some muscle relaxants. Luckily I only have to take one and I never have another spasm, but I can't sit at my desk now at all without experiencing pain. It's at this point I decide it's time to finish my physiotherapy and get this taken care of, hopefully for good.
I make an appointment at a different physiotherapist, one recommended to me by a family friend, and luckily for me this one turns out to be much better. First appointment is a similar assessment, still can't bend forward, etc. It also ends the same way, face down on the table, electric machine shocking me, big ice pack, but the middle is quite different. This physiotherapist is really spending a lot more time poking and prodding me to see exactly how my bones and joints are situated. They tell me that my pelvis is twisted and that it might be a contributing factor to instability in my back. Now this is something I genuinely attribute to football. If you'll remember earlier I mentioned that starting the sled drills involved taking a three point stance. Well that was the year I really developed the mechanics of my stance, and by the end of that year Im no longer able to do a three point stance with my left leg back, but am very comfortable taking a stance with my right leg back. This is the exact way my pelvis is tilted (although admittedly there's only two ways it could be). He starts bending me around like a pretzel to correct the tilt. Then at the very end he puts some tape on my lower right side to support the muscles there. This works very well and for the first time since since the spasms i'm able to drive home seated pain free.
Now for the next few weeks while Im getting physio, I still can't sit down for any length of time. To adapt I start wearing knee pads and kneeling at my desk. It's the only way I can use the computer, and I work on a computer all day. I also realize how much I had been leaning forward to use the computer and decide to just make all the fonts bigger (and yes I eventually went and got an eye test, and now where glasses). I complete all the sessions which are similar to the first, and at the end Im completely pain free and able to sit for extended lengths of time with no issues and I've also stopped leaning.
Episode 4: a new hope. Fast forward another few years, im sitting again in another marathon session with what might even be the same stupid game. I feel my back start getting sore again. I have not experienced any real consistent back pain since the last incident and it seems to have come out of nowhere. I don't wait for it to get to spasm, I take a relaxant and I go lay down (the same pack, they're expired now but they're still fine), I'm done with the computer for the day. The next day I go and dig out my knee pads just in case, and sure enough when I go to sit down its painful again. Keep in mind I have glasses now, I keep seated back. I also completely finished my physio sessions last time and my physiotherapist said It looks fully recovered. I decide if I have to Ill do therapy again, but I want to see if I can fix it on my own.
I start with the ice and have some success, it reduces the pain from just my lower back being sore, to two single points on my the sides of my lower sine, just next to my spine. This information becomes key to further diagnosis later. I try a heating pack after with mild success, but nothing really is fixing it. Im still unable to sit at this point and am still using the knee pads. My relaxation time is spent laying down flat on my back, with at most a pillow to raise my head up. I can sleep on my side but that's about it. I decide to do some research online and that's when I find this video:
Even from the thumbnail I instantly recognize that's where my back pain is, but only after I had reduced it from icing. The inflammation pain was my entire lower back all the way across. I believe that pain was from my injury, however I believe I had developed new pain from excessive sitting leading up to my third episode. After I watch the video the symptoms he described are exactly what I have, but I'm skeptical I can fix it as easily as he makes it seem. I do the move where you lay down and press it and move your hip. I can't even express how amazed I was. After literally five minutes my left side was completely pain free and my right side had a 75% reduction in pain.
I then try the exercises, specifically the one where you raise your leg and arm then lift and lower your hip. The left side is challenging but I do all ten. The right side right away is incredibly difficult, before I've even started the muscle feels exhausted. I can only do three. Just feeling the side of my hip the muscle feels warm to the touch. I try the heat pack and as soon as I put it on it starts to feel incredibly hot, like I'm burning, but when I feel the pack with my hand it's only warm. It took another week or two of doing those exercises and heat pack every day, but after i'm completely pain free and able to sit again.
If anyone ever reads this and has back pain, I wish you the best of luck in dealing with it. Just remember watching a video isn't a substitute for seeing a medical professional. I already had an x-ray, I already knew I didn't have any bone fracture or slipped discs or anything else that required medical treatment. There's also no doubt physiotherapy helped me both times. I should also mention I have seen a chiropractor, in between episode 3 and 4, and while I did find it beneficial in other ways, it did not provide any benefit in regard to these incidents. I did get an appointment with my chiropractor during episode 4, and his assessment was while my lower back muscles were so tight it felt like I had been mixing cement, my joints were still functioning correctly so there wasn't much they could do. They did do an adjustment though and I did notice some relief thankfully. Just like physiotherapists there are good and bad chiropractors, so do your research before you go see one if you're considering it. I can't really say if I had one or multiple different problems, but there's no doubt the back is a complicated system that can have many different problems that can all feel similar.
I continued to do the exercises every day for a few months, but then I started slacking. I haven't had any back pain since but I think I'll do a set right now and continue on tomorrow.
It took almost exactly 3 years to come back to this but I did it. Just rereading my first post I don't know what I was thinking. The intention of this was never to be creative. I remember a podcast Jordan Peterson did where he stated that writing down your thoughts, not just thinking them, had a profound effect. The theme of these posts was always times in my life when I've given up on stuff. Sometimes I cared about it, sometimes I didnt. There just seems to be a switch in me that flips, from enjoying something to absolutely hating it. It's surprising how long it lasts too, once I'm done with something I'm done for good. Is there a point to this? Not really. It's just some stories from my past that seem to stick around longer than they should, and my hope is that in writing them down, I can finally put them behind me. Although I may not post again for another three years, we'll see.
I recently had to submit a high school transcript for something work related. It made me recollect a story that would be suitable for here, so here we go. The person I submitted it to glanced over it and pointed out I had received a 52% in grade eleven english. The reason why was pretty simple.
It was because I had decided to quit the high school band.
In grade nine, it was compulsory in my school to take a music class. They had two choices, a beginner class, and an intermediate class for those who had taken previous music classes. I had taken two music classes in middle school, both for the Alto Saxophone, so the choice was pretty obvious. I took the beginner class. Have you ever lugged a saxophone case to and from school every day for two years? I have and I wouldn't recommend it. This time when instrument selection came to me, I chose the nice light and compact claranet. I went through unremarkably and didn't particularly enjoy it.
When tenth grade class selection came along I dont know what possessed me but I chose music again. This time however the intermediate students and the beginner were lumped into the same class. It didn't take long for me to recognize this was a mistake and I went to the guidance counselor to drop the class. As I was about to leave with my new updated schedule my guidance counselor informed me that I still had to attend one last class that day before the new schedule took effect. I should have just not gone, what where they going to do expel me? No one would have even noticed. Still with the misguided believe that the authority of the high school establishment was absolute it never even occurred to me not to go. What a mistake that turned out to be.
The class went normally until the very end, when in front of the entire class my music teacher stated me by name that I should join the school band. I guess most, if not all, the other students still in the music program at this time were in the band, except me, and now infront of all of them I had to explain why I didn't want to. The teacher wasn't having it, she insisted. It would require me to stay after school every day for band practice. I already had football practice after school, and there was no way in hell I was going to quit football to play the clarinet. The idea of continuing this conversation in front of the entire class was mortifying, so I told her I'd think about it and tell her next class. I knew full well there wasn't going to be a next class for me. I walked out of there with what could only be described as the smuggest grin of my entire life, I had got one over one of my teachers. You would assume a normal adult wouldn't really care about what one tenth grade student did or didn't do. I found out from my friend Brian that during the next class infront of all the students she called me a coward. This made me laugh, she was probably right, but at least it was over now right? Boy was I wrong.
At the end of the year my music teacher decided she no longer wanted to teach music. Apparently she couldn't do with the program what she wanted to, so she just decided to quit music altogether and go back to teaching english. Still to this day I don't understand this decision, I'm sure being a music teacher is difficult and all, but do you really need to prepare anything? There's no lesson plans, there's no homework to assign. What do they even have to do besides print out sheet music and listen to teenagers play music poorly? There has to be tons more work being an English teacher, and for what? How rewarding can it be to force teenagers to read books they don't want to and then read their poorly written reports on them over and over? Anyways you can probably see where this is going, but guess who gets put into her grade eleven english class? Yep I do.
Surely she could not hold a grudge an entire year later right? Wrong. Dead wrong. Every report I submit gets a D grade, every subjective answer on a test I take gets inflammatory comments written on it in red ink. Two of my friends also in that class notice very quickly I'm getting especially poor treatment very quickly. One of my friends skips most of the classes, his midterm grade is a B, mine is a D-. My other friend who is actually particularly interested in creative writing finds this class especially poorly taught, he starts brining a small throw pillow to class so he can sleep. She doesn't notice, or chooses not to acknowledge it. I decide to stop trying, on the next test its a simple fill in the blanks questionnaire about a book we were supposed to read. I didn't read the book, I fill it out the answers as If it were questions about star wars. She happily gives me a 0. I finish the year with a 52%.
I never try in English classes again in my high school career. I never read another book for assignments, I do all further assignments from cole's notes. In my final year of high school I fail english. English is a required credit to graduate, so I must take summer school. I'm applying to universities right now, so once they receive my records including my failing grade in English, I start to receive rejection letters. Despite all this i finish summer school English with a 77%. I could have done much better but after I completed the first week of work, in the second week I decided not to read the book and don't submit the second assignment at all. The teacher just graduated from teachers college and is very nice, she decides to let it slide because she knows if I fail this then I don't graduate from high school. I can't remember her name but Im very greatful for her.
As for universities at this time all of the programs I had applied to had rejected me. One school even sent me two rejection letters for the same program in one envelope. However a few weeks later I get a letter from one of the Universities I applied to, it was for a new program they had just created, hence why it was so much later then the others. The requirements were mostly math related, something I excelled at, and was only offered to students that had applied for other programs (since this program didn't exist when new students were applying) but weren't accepted. I could not believe my luck, so I immediately replied I was interested. I didn't find out I was accepted until mid august, and that classes would start in a couple of weeks. I still to this day can't believe how lucky I was. My initial class was 40 people, compared to the other programs I had applied to having classes of 200-300 people. I ended with a graduating class of about 20 people, of which several graduate with distinction, myself included.
To this day I still do not enjoy fiction reading. I've read exactly two fiction books since then, both of which were unrequested gifts, both of which I only read when the power was out in my home. I wish I could remember the name of the summer school teacher that impacted me so much so I could thank her, but I can't. As for the music teacher? I remember her name very well. I don't know how I should feel about her, I had honestly forgot until this question about my grades came up. Through writing this I hope to finally get some kind of closure. I hope I forget about it again soon. I apologize if there are any grammatical mistakes in this, but after trying to reread it to proofread I decided it's not worth recounting again. Maybe I should try to read a book and see how it goes.
