This is a story about mobbing.

Imagine who I am without movement. I am particulate mass rotting away, dying like senescent plant matter. What does it mean to move?

Quantum mechanics states that all particles exhibit both particle and wave properties. I am rays. This is what I feel with knee flexion and full plantar flexion. I am bands. Find the ones that hurt the most. What does it mean to hurt? Test, re-test. What is a few degrees of knee flexion worth to me?

When she was gone, I felt nothing. I am ice.

What should pain mean to an organism?

She walks away and I watch. This is what I will remember of her; watching her leave. I picture walking by her side. Even in my head I can only see the silhouette of her not looking at me. I try not to think about this. Is this pain?

Decide you want to do something. Pour yourself into the act of doing it. Come up short. Do this again and again. Become familiar with failure. I am not strong enough, I am not skillful enough, I am not who I want to be. Is this pain?

She loves me. I believe her. It isn’t enough. She would give more if she could. She can’t. I am water, wave-like particles seeping out of a broken vessel. She grasps at me and I weave through her fingers. Is this pain?

Find what hurts. Pin point it. Bear down on it. Does it feel like a knife? Move under pressure. I am rays. I am bands. I am muscle fibers contracting and releasing, with an unyielding ball lodged between my scapula and thoracic spine. Where are my scars? What will it take to free them? Scar tissue doesn’t change. Hurt something inside you, and it is never the same. Have you tested your limits? One day we all become broken.

Breathe. Move. I am muscle fibers contracting and releasing. Pain is a construct of the mind.

Test, retest. Am I different? Am I better? Measure this in degrees.

“Have you changed?” she asks. For a moment, I believe in something I can’t prove.

Shrug. This is a function of scapular elevation. How much of that is influenced by soft-tissue adhesions?

And then she is gone. I feel nothing. I am ice. Scar tissue does not contract. It is non-functional tissue in the context of movement.

Externally rotate the hip. Descend into hip flexion. Does it feel like tearing? Breathe. Move farther. Close the hip angle. Without movement, I am rotting particulate mass. Repeat this mantra. I am rays, I am bands. Test, retest. Have I felt this before?

Tissue only adapts to the stressors imposed upon it. I forget what it is to see her face.

I sprained knee ligaments a few years ago. The knee won’t forget that; it is why a few degrees of knee flexion matter to me. It was hurt and changed forever. Tissues scarred over and there are pieces in the bands and rays of that leg that don’t contribute to movement.

I think of her. Pain is a construct of the mind. Stretch farther. Bear down harder. Damaged tissue can’t be changed but I can still recover lost function. Measure this in degrees. How much less does it bother me that I can’t go back?

Leave a comment ?

43 Comments.

  1. I feel like you slit your throat right as you hit publish on this post.

  2. I’m gonna slit my throat as soon as I hit submit.

  3. WTF???? Did Frank Yang hijack your blog or something?

  4. cristina reads your blog

    BE STILL MY HEART

  5. hey bro, it gets better. even obama said so.

  6. Fucking Wow. This is gonna be an even better week than I thought.

    Thanks Brent,

    Best

  7. Brent just dropping by to anonymously claim that this is by far the best and most compelling section of the 70sbig website. The main page has become uninteresting and always about girls training/desperately trying to persuade girls to train.

    • Yeah, you’re right. One of every five posts is definitely the definition of “always”.

      Anonymous posters are such pussies, especially when they live in Phoenix, Arizona.

  8. hey asdf, what the fuck is your deadlift:curl ratio phaggot?

  9. Brent definitely wins 70s big

  10. Brent,

    I have been hitting up the local Super H mart sporting a tank top and hitting a double bi pose at any and all ladies > 40. Prepping them for your visit to pick your VPKG. No need to thank me, just have your Mom send me some pork dumplings…please.

  11. Too deep for me. Anyone fancy a pint?

  12. oh brent! the agony. the beauty. wow.

  13. this easily shits on frank yang’s xanga

  14. Never has the title of the preceding blog post so accurately encapsulated my reaction to the content of the current post.

  15. This was better than Jon north’s piece of shit blog. Stay safe Brent.

  16. Brent: the other day an attractive coworker told me that I seemed really innocent. Has that ever happened to you? What the fuck’s that supposed to mean? Should I fucking kill myself?

  17. And she looks into my eyes one last time. Then she fades into nothing more than a memory. And I wonder “why did that 300lb lineman land on my ankle and stretch and tear ligaments? Will my ankle ever be the same? No. Two years it has been and not a day goes by where I don’t feel the pain, the restricted movement. Just as she tore the ligaments in my heart. Now with every beat my heart is in pain, and I know it will always be restricted. It can never be free again… Never again.

  18. What the fuck is this post supposed to mean?

  19. Brent has never done drugs, but I think this is what someone tripping on LCD would write.

  20. is “Chris” Chris Riley?

  21. brent,

    this may be somewhere in your blog already, but where do you get your grass fed beef AND is it cheaper per pound compared to dick-fed beef bought at the local grocery?

  22. Brent, I don’t often make astute observations, but I figured that since you’re Asian you would enjoy this.

    http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/bloodsport_band.gif

  23. i thought this blog was supposed to be about starcraft 2, and sometimes training weights. what the hell did i just read?

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