Well it happened again!!

I have the same back pain again that I have been having for the past few years. “Luckily” this is the 5th this year it has happened.

One of worst things I have ever experienced. It takes me to my bed. Lie there for a few days before I can recover.

And this time, there wasn't any apparant reason. In all the last instances it has always been that either I sneezed, or was folding the bed sheet, lifting my kid. I always had a reason.

Not this time, there was no reason, last Tuesday suddenly I started feeling stiffness in my neck. Then slowly it radiated towards the back. I in that moment knew, what is coming. Although I did not know what to do. I started moving carefully, not lifting even small things otherwise it would be triggered.

Nevertheless it happened. I am not lying in the sofa breathing controllably otherwise it pains.

Now why is this happening again?

I thought it was due to muscle imbalance. So I started strengthening the pelvis and back muscles. I am even training the deep spine muscles which generally don't need extra training.

I am doing all the IYTW raises to keep a good posture, bought a standing desk now because sitting continuously can also cause these issues. I know muscles get weakend and this cause spasms.

Although even then it should not be so frequent.

Then why?

A new theory I am now understanding is that it may not be a problem of the muscle itself.

I found this documentary All the rage by Dr Sarno.

It argues that the back spasm is not actually the muscles problem but it is a way for your body to tell you to chill.

When you are consistently generating anxiety, taking and coping with stress, your mind becomes tired. Even when you dont feel like it, you are burned out. So your mind wants a break.

“Nothing is wrong with your back; it’s your mind trying to distract you from normal life stress.”

And to be honest, past year has been stressful. Even when I don't like to admit it, the stress of searching for job, thinking about what would I do if I don't get a job. The bigger stress being what would I do if I don't get a job.

It was a good coping mechanism to rely on past experiences or wisdom that there is a plan for you but that's what they were. Coping mechanism. The stress, anxiety was always there.

Even now when there is a job, the stress factor is continued. Along with the normal job stress level, I think I am doing a lot of things at the moment. There are two courses I needed to finish, one practicum presentation. Along with that I am doing the language course. And this all in addition to the normal office tasks, family responsibilities.

One thing has been in the back of my mind for long time: I do not get time for myself. From the moment I wake up, it is taking Akshat to school, then office, bring Akshat back, again office. Post that take kid to the park or go do groceries, and if I do get some time in between, do the home work of the courses, of dutch class or try to squeeze a workout.

The all four burners are running continuously for last few months.

The biggest burner

I haven't told about the biggest burner yet. The stammering. No matter how much I speak and let the stammering not be a big factor in my day to day life, saying it is not a biggest contributor to my anxiety would not be honest.

Every moment I have to speak, it is always the first that how would I manage the stammering. The anxiety related to it is ever present. I do know the ways to cope with it. But as said coping doesn't mean solving.

Maybe this book/documentary would help me finally understand the cause of my back problems.

Although it doesn't explain why it happens all the time in autumn 🍂.

Do you also sometime think everything is exactly same now.

Cars, phones, clothes, everyone with same beard...

Few months ago I restarted using insta. The main purpose of it is to get in touch with the younger generation. No matter how much I deny, the next gen is on insta and other such platforms.

If I were to reach that generation, I would have to be on the platform that they are.

As you know meta's Policy is to keep you on their platform. It will attempt everything to the do so. Same is the pattern of YouTube.

Honestly meta is worse as after hooking me up, they started serving the triggering content and that too at night when my reasoning powers are very low. But that's topic for another day.

So, Essentially such platforms try to understand things about you and then serve you similar content to keep you watching.

I used to have Instagram about 6 years ago. The reels and short form content was just starting. The posts were mostly images and memes. I loved memes.

One important distinction at that time was the differences of platform and served content. FB served different content that insta and if I wanted to watch videos, YouTube was there. The boundaries were defined.

This time, after using insta for a few weeks, one thing to notice is, all platform serve same things. I would watch same video thrice or twice as I use Facebook rarely now.

Each content creator uses all the platform and all the algorithms are so advanced that they would recognise you, create a a profile on you and then use that to serve (hook) you more.

The profile was different earlier as algos were still developing but now , algos have matured all the profiles are same and the content also looks the same.

Now you can also see this everywhere else. All the cars look the same. Bloated buffalo with squinted eyes, all the mobile phones. If you don't really follow, it would be almost impossible to tell one phone from another, other than maybe pixels.

The convergence, I think now complete. I do see some new fun colors in cars and recently cloths. People are wearing colorful cloths again and trying to be more distinct and intentional. Hopefully the trend continues but I do not think same would happen for social media.

Unfortunately I have to be on them for the moment no matter how much I dislike them.

For the past 2 months I have been battling with back pain. it hasn't been good time.

it got better over the weeks but then last week again, somehow it got triggered again and since then I was bed ridden.

I got to understand a few things about why this keeps on coming back. The conclusion that I have come to now is that it is my erector spinae which gets stiff after long continuous walks.

Last time when it happened, it was due to I walked about 13k steps every day in which about 7-8k was done together. This time as well, I did 6k steps when the back wasn't completely healed, next day I sneezed and it got locked again.

The endurance strength of the back needs to be increased. This time: baby steps.

Anyway today after 5 days I was able to stand continuously for 10 mins to make two cups of tea. Until now I could prepare but midway I would have to lie down, take load off the back so that it doesn't become worse again.

Here's to tea...

As I reach my mid 30s, it keeps getting clear to me that I cannot train as I used to earlier in my life.

During college and later when I joined the workforce, I could workout for 2 hours everyday and still could function well throughout the day. The recovery was never an issue. I would still be able to active throughout the day. Never had I felt the need to stretch, although I always did because I liked doing so. This is what has made me hyper flexible.

Now it appears I cannot do the same. Lately It is becoming clearer to me that I should change my plan.

This knowledge has not been made available to me without charges. For past few years I have been struggling with being active at the gym. I would go for a few days, workout and then something would happen. I would pull my shoulder, or sprain it or my back would give out.

Thus I would again have to take a break and rest till it heals.

For past few months I have been reading more about training and nutrition. A very important part of that is recovery. A part that earlier I would never think and would train 7 days if had time.

Now I only workout 3 days a week and rest of the days I only walk or do light cardio. This helps me keep my heart rate up and keeps the blood flowing. More blood flow helps in recovery much more. Even with all this, I can’t simply come out of bed and start moving. The way my son does. :D

I have to do small movements before I do the big ones. Ones like moving my toes, then ankle, pelvis, shoulders. If I get out of bed, without doing these, the body does not feel the same. It moves hard, with minor pains here and there.

A big weapon I am finding is taking warm shower after getting out of bed. You have heard of cold shower. Two times I took those and it froze my shoulder. I was walking like Robot for 3 days. Warm shower all the way.

Never had I thought the mid 30s would be like this but I have had years of bad posture, over training. The bill is coming now.

Find me on Hevy

This seems contradictory on the first interaction but let me explain.

Recently I started noticing one anomaly in my behaviour. I was missing a lot of stuff which I generally would not do. Like I would not put the lid back on the water jar in my kitchen after drinking water.

Or I would forget to bring back cloths from bathroom to the washing area after taking a bath.

Or I would not put my shoes on the shoe rack but on the side.

These seem much smaller issue but I never used to shy away from doing all these. This was a recent change and it seemed it’s not a good one. I should check what is happening.

I started to slow down a bit while doing stuff.

What I noticed was actually not very surprising. I was keeping my phone all the time with me.

I will wake up and reach out to my phone and start reading twitter posts. Then after 10 minutes, start watching YouTube shorts. One hour will be over and I will still be lying in my bed. Somedays I do move to sofa but that is not better at all.

It will either be watching YouTube shorts, or scrolling through twitter or reading Facebook posts. I always had the phone in my hand. In the toiler, while brushing, while wearing clothes or shoes, while drinking water. No matter what I was doing, it was with me.

Earlier I used to call my stammering my stalker but I think it is now my phone.

While doing so, I would ignore the task that I was supposed to do. Like putting the cap back on the jar. I would drink water and walk away.

I was more absent minded than I had ever been.

On a deeper level if I think it might be that my mind was thinking this info is very necessary for me. If I do not watch this short, something bad would happen but if I do not put shoe up on the shoe rack, it’s fine. That’s not a very threatening change.

I would give more importance to reading a post on twitter than the task at hand.

This is not good.

So, about a week ago, I changed a lot of things in my phone. I. removed YouTube, Logged out from twitter and Facebook. Fortunately I am not on insta which I hear is the worst of all.

Now I had nothing to watch on my phone. If I do open greyjay, I get normal videos instead of YouTube shorts. Watching a 10 min video has not almost become impossible for me. Probably due to shorter attention span but in any case, I do not have option.

The phone use decreased. It did not stop completely though. I would still sometime like an automated robot would reach out for the phone. In fact I logged into twitter multiple times. Like the Iran conflict would be solved If I provide my opinion on it.

Then a few days ago, when I woke up, I read an email in my phone. My twitter account was suspended because twitter thinks I am a bot.

My problem was automatically solved. I do not need to do anything there.

Now it has been about a week without any such app in my phone. I would still pick up my phone. There would be nothing to do so I would put it back.

Now I am more bored in the day. The two hours that I was watching shorts, I have nothing to fill there. Somedays I just sleep and that is amazing. I am catching back on my remaining sleep.

Other days I would go for a walk. Now it doesn’t feel difficult to complete 10k steps in a day.

But more importantly, I am doing more stuff.

I am writing more cause I not bust reading other’s twitter posts.

I take more photos because I am not busy watching other’s pics.

I am using my mind more to think ideas where previously I would simply let the day go without much output.

So overall, I am more productive because I have time on my hand and lesser distractions.

I am bored hence I am productive.

Here are a few pics that I took recently.

Next time I would try to smooth out water.

The rusty look of the bench and new life oozing from the flower.

Taking a picture has been accessible for almost 20 years now but not everyone is a good photographer.

Writing a book has been very easy for almost a 50 years now if not a century but not everyone is a great writer.

A similar function, is of the AI, at the present moment. People who know how to do things can increase their productivity many folds yet people who are completely unaware of another filed can do passable stuff.

If I have to edit a photo that is under exposed, I can ask AI to increase the exposure. In order to do so, I have to know what exposure is. The other way to do this can be I simply ask AI to “make the photo better” but AI in its sense doesn't know what better is.

However when such a tool is given to a professional photographer who understands exposure, shadow, highlights, he/she can make the edit much faster that what it used to take him.

Although in the process, we are going to see a churn. A churn which will render most of the population jobless in the transitory period. Similar thing happened at the start of industrial revolution where textile industries of India which were world leaders in producing clothes were left behind and the machines produced clothes at a much efficient rate. (Not excusing the coloism as that played an important role in the de-industrilisarion).

Coming back to the topic, I see many propagating the idea that AI can write all the code and our efficiency can increase 100 folds. The textile revolution has resulted into fast fashion where people buy and wear clothes for only one time. The abundance is such, due to their being demand of it in the fashion industry. I do not see such demand in coding space. Regular maintenance and security updation probably can be done using AI but I have to see that to believe it. No company in the world wants to risk unavailability.

We are going to see what happens with AI as it unfolds. There are more questions that remains to be answered. Biggest one being, is there going to be any way where the money invested already in the AI be recovered to make it profitable. When will be the time where cost of AI surpasses the cost of a developer or photographer.

Presently we are enjoying subsidized prices but when the music stops, what would happen?

Many a times I ask myself who do I want to learn photography. It is not a career option for me. It is not something I had always wanted to do. It’s just something I picked up last year.

Not long ago, I was writing an article. In that article, to emphasise my point, I wanted to add a pic of an umbrella that has come from the rain. A few droplets of the rain was supposed to be on the umbrella.

I wanted that picture to be clicked by myself. Obviously I could download one from google or unsplash but that does not produce the same emotion as the one that I had clicked with my own hands. The one I had edited according to my own preferences.

I could not find any.

This is when I thought why people take picture. Not because they also write something and need to hammer their point but the picture represents something to them. A lady wearing a red in autumn can mean nothing to me but it can very well remind someone of their home. Or the time when they were very emoted.

Recently, while in a discussion, I was reminded of a book that I read. The book that helped me understand a lot about the world. Most importantly it helped me move on in life, from things that I was holding onto for emotional reason rather than practical ones.

One quote from the book, that, everytime I read takes me back to the days when I was sitting on the hostel roof, slight rain looking over the horizon and seeing the cars going over the expressway.

• दुःख सबको माँजता है और— चाहे स्वयं सबको मुक्ति देना वह न जाने, किंतु जिनको माँजता है उन्हें यह सीख देता है कि सबको मुक्त रखें।*
• Sorrow refines everyone, and—though it may not know how to grant liberation to all itself—it teaches those whom it refines to set everyone free.*

Agyeya has a way about him that I haven't been able to find in any of the writers I have read. Only “The Idiot” from Dostoevsky probably comes close.

I remember when I read this book for the first time, almost every line would make me sit and think about it. It took ages to finish the book because of that.

Once done, I knew I had to gift this book to a friend of mine. I generally don't think about other people's in that sense. I think I am not equipped for that kind of social life.

Anyway while discussing the book, I referred to book as a lesson on how not every store in your life needs to have an end. Sometimes the incompleteness of the story itself is a completeness. You take the jacket off once it's not cold. it doesn't make sense to keep on holding to it because it helped you during cold.

And then the organiser gave a simile for the book for a movie called: Hamari adhoori Kahani. I thought at the moment and what!! the movie that I found cringe is so close to my favorite book!

what a life!!!