19. Injuries and Death

We’ve both had reasonably legit shoulder injuries recently. How do we feel about it? What have we learnt?

Well firstly it’s inconvenient. It turns out you use your shoulder for a lot of things. No more jiu-jitsu for a bit.

Secondly, it hurts. While it’s positive to get the occasional recalibration of our pain scales, it is remarkable how debilitating pain can be. It is much better being uninjured than being injured, in a way you don’t appreciate day-to-day.

But perhaps most profoundly, it’s confronted us with our mortality. We go through life with our minds filled with the mundane and abstract, careers and salaries and emails and politics. But sometimes something real, an injury or death, intrudes on it and for a time puts everything in perspective. Perhaps it’s no bad thing to get the occasional reminder of the fact we’re going to die, and to face up to it, if we’re going to live a good life. A memento mori.

So what have we changed? Fitness, for one. If we didn’t realise that our shoulders were important until we lost their use, what about everything else? Given that our bodies are going to fall apart eventually, are there steps we can take to keep our bodies working well for longer? And do these steps have positive moral externalities? Can you even have a powerful intellect without a powerful body? So one of our co-hosts has resolved to stare death in the face and get jacked (the other already is, can you guess which?).

Reading list: Baldwin in Brahman, The Wisdom of Mike Mentzer, Sun and Steel,