The Same

I popped my knee ligament at training on Friday. It made a definite crack inside the joint.  I tried to throw a heavy weight player in a left ko-uchi gari with a right handed grip. I didn't get his balance loaded onto his leg right; so he countered with ura nage; it was pretty spectacular. I had my left foot buried behind his left heel; my body went over his shoulder; my leg didn't.

The second I landed it felt wrong. I felt a strong pop in my knee. It was very similar to a feeling I used to have every morning in the shower about two years ago; where i would deliberately put strain on the side of my knee to crack the joint. I stopped because my knees felt too sore for a while. This time; it felt exactly like that; but stronger and more painful. The issue was not that it hurt; but that my knee felt dangerously unstable. It felt like my upper and lower leg, at the kneecap, had become two pencils balancing on top of each other at the sharpened edges of graphite. It felt like any slight pressure from the right side of my left knee would make my knee bend inwards towards my other leg.

I finished the round, it took an extra minute. I couldn't leg sweep, so i went for hip throws. The pressure from hip throws puts pressure squarely down on your knees; so this did not make me feel too uncomfortable. I couldn't do anything with this throw; and i was grateful to finish. I tried stretching, it felt really wierd. I struggled to walk down the stairs after training. I figured my leg was too busted to train on for at least a fair while; so i decided to drink.

I got an x ray the next day. An x ray, a medical opinion, and being shown how to tape up my knee cost less than the tape i bought. The medical insurance is pretty good here. I was told, (or at least i think i was, because it was all in Japanese), that I hadn't snapped anything. I was told to come back in a month for a check up. I have no idea how long i have to stay rested; but Im going to give it maybe a week or two.

Going from 3.5 hours or so of judo a day to nothing messed with me a bit. The first night; i was drunk; but not so drunk that i could sleep through the pain coming from my knee. I woke up at 4.30 and couldnt sleep after that. I got drunker the next night; that worked the ticket. I don't know what i need to do to rehabilitate it; i will go to my first training since it happened tomorrow and try asking some people.

There is a word; it gets thrown around a lot socially; i feel it isn't really understood all that well. I am not going to use it; because i don't know if my life experiences fit the meaning this word has. J.K. Rowling made the dementors in her books around this word. It is very unlike being "down in the dumps" or "sad". I do not want people thinking that i confuse sadness with this word. I am willing to accept that maybe this word doesn't apply to my circumstances. Its like calling the cold the flu. Colds irritate; influenza kills people, damages economies and threatens societies.

Throughout my life, i have had a few experiences that make me think that maybe i understand what this word means when it happens to someone. I will try and explain my personal opinion of it. For me, it progresses in steps; the more steps you progress into it; the stronger it gets; and the harder it is to extricate yourself out of it.

1. I know everything
>>>>>>>>. I have seen just about everything there is to see. I have been to just about everywhere there is to go. I have spoken to just about everyone that I can ever speak to. I have had just about every experience that a human being can have. I know everything about everything. What I have not seen or done, if later I did do or see it, would not change any opinion I have of anything. All it would do is provide more proof that the general principles that I understand apply to everything unknown as well.

2. It is all the same
>>>>>>>>>. All of these experiences blur into each other like mixed paint; and their distinctions are meaningless. These experiences are many; but they don't differ in any way. Mild irritation and excruciating pain differ only in a matter of degree, and that distinction is subjective and meaningless; they are the same. Life at the bottom of the marinara trench and life in the great barrier reef is all pretty much the same. There is nowhere on earth that anyone can go to where they might find anything different to everything else. If tomorrow intergalactic space travel were possible, and you went to a distant exotic planet; you would find it as you would find anywhere on earth; exactly the same. People on opposite ends of the earth have the same opinions; the same prejudices; and live and die identically. If this is true; then there is no reason why you too should not also be the same; just like everyone and everything else.

3. Therefore, i am experiencing everything right here, right now
>>>>>>>>. If you know everything; and it is all the same; then there is no point in going anywhere to experience anything else other than what you can see, feel or do right now. If you did go, it would all be the same; and you would waste effort in pursuing something that you could do from anywhere. There is no point in talking to anyone else; it would be exactly the same as having a conversation in your head with yourself, you are the same as them. Experiencing emotions from external sources is pointless, you already know how it will make you feel; what it will make you feel; when you will feel what you feel. Because you know everything; and it is all the same; you can experience everything life has to offer you from your own bedroom. There is no point in going outside; outside will not offer anything different to what you are experiencing now. There are no feelings; you cant feel anything because you already understand it all. You cannot have an emotional reaction to something you expect.

4. Nothing will ever change this.
>>>>>>>>>. If everything is understood; and it is all the same; which then makes going anywhere unnecessary; then one last step remains. You must then realize; if you understand it all; that it will always be like this. It will always be pointless to choose any action over another; because any choice anyone makes, ever, results in some kind of experience; all of which are the same. Sleeping 14 hours a day; socializing; or studying hard; there is no reason to choose any one of these above another because they all end up providing an experience; which is identical to any other experience. Lost opportunity means nothing, because how it makes you feel is identical to achieving your most ambitious goal. There will never be any reason to choose to do anything; because the result will always be the same.

In highschool, I used to go through 1 and 2 quite often during the holidays. I would go back to our family farm on central Queensland and feel that there was nothing new to do or feel there. 2 feels like a deep boredom. The feeling i have now, after being out of judo for a few days, is like this. It is not a sad feeling. It is an emptiness. The colour and vibrancy of your life start to bleed out after 3. After my contract A exam; I got to 3, and was pretty much bedridden for a week. I had studied my arse off; and now had vast expanses of time to think and analyse what i had done. I couldn't feel anything at all. If i failed and had to sit it again; or if i succeeded and became a lawyer; both paths would lead to difficulty; stress and hardship; which are the same. When every action leads to the same result; you start to become indifferent to life. You are not unhappy, you are emotionless, you cannot feel at all.

4 is the worst. That's when hope becomes impossible. I have not experienced this stage too often; if i had it would have stripped my of the parts in my mind that make me human. Drinking can help for 3 in the short term; it can artificially implant emotions into your mind if you cannot have them without it. In the long term; it makes it worse. Right now, i feel like i am at two. It isn't too worrying; i have been here before. But the problem is; if 3 develops, you get ill. You stop sleeping in a predicable pattern; your appetite evaporates, and you don't want to go outside. I did Judo for a week at 3, it seems to help fix my sleep cycle and get me back to 2 and further out of this problem. It was a struggle, and i couldn't make eye contact with anyone at training. I wasn't afraid of eye contact; it was that i felt that if people judged me negatively by not interacting properly; it would be exactly the same as if i maintained eye contact and came across better. I lost my fear that motivated me to socialize, to avoid being judged negatively. the main problem about 3 is that it removes your motivation; it bores you into a weakened mental state.

Ive found that keeping busy helps. Having goals that destroy your spare time does too. If i have too much time to be introspective; i go through 1 and 2 and end up at 3 pretty quickly. I hope my knee gets better soon. I feel frustrated, which means I feel, which means that now I am not yet at 3. Once I get back into the judo schedule and work towards my goal of getting better at judo, I will get out of 2 and 1. Repetitively thrashing my body and mind beyond its limits helps prevent 1 from ever developing. I got to 3 and maybe 4 once when i studied journalism. After I changed to a dual with law it really helped me get over the fact that i am not an enlightened super being. If i ever get comfortable with legal study i can see 1 becoming a problem again; so this is a good motivator to always push my degree in directions to prevent 1 from ever being a problem. Japanese helps. Meeting people from other cultures helps. I think i will never have the problem of knowing it all about law, so it helps me frame my limited understanding away from 1.

My knee will get better soon; I will be training again soon. I have an idea for a judo throw; i got it on the train. I don't know if it will work; which violates 1. I want to get into judo again to break this process.