Happy back? Check. Brain Food? Check

Today I have nil backpain and feel ready for an immediate return to more activity. It's a very dangerous state of mind. Today I caught myself bending down to feed the cats in a reckless, non knee-bending manner. Doing a hundred-thousand squats a day gets tedious, but on the flip-side, I will have a healthy back and firm buttocks. This speedy recovery also confirms my suspicion that the best thing to do for a disc rupture is.. nothing. Rest it. No rehab, no chiropractor, no deep massage. All of that is on the 'to-do' now, but for the last week, the list looked like this:

Back Health To-Do

1. As little as possible of everything

2. Particularly minimise anything that involves sitting or standing

3. If anything causes pain, don't do it, duh.

I think so often, the need to do something can override common sense. It's actually a bit like weightloss - sometime the best thing to do is just nothing. No special food, no tortourous exercise, no obsessing, no calorie cycling, planned cheats or low-carb days, just eat a bit less, move a bit more and let it happen. Sometimes I think we all try a bit too hard.

Today I am also making a stupendous effort to catch up on my Community Psychology (CP) paper, which involves a small mountain of reading. I have to read the textbook and relate the concepts therein to a stack of journal articles. At the moment I am resisting the content a bit because it leans heavily on the influence of society and the necessity to make changes at the policy/society level while de-emphasising the responsibility of the individual or the value of individual interventions. I tend to think that if you have a person, or small group that want/s to improve their life/lives, shouldn't resources be made available to those motivated people, rather than targeting an area, cultural group or a whole country, many of whom may not want to change/be healthier/develop cultural awareness/get educated?

As I remarked to a classmate, I fear my attitude is wildly un-CP. I need to mull it over more, while I slurp my cacao/maca/wpc/banana smoothie (see pic). I think the goals of CP (liberation and wellbeing) are great. I just don't know if society is ready to do what it takes to make that a reality for everyone - particularly as this would mean the few relinquishing the right to lord it over the many. Call me cynical, skeptical, having a grumpy day. Tomorrow will be better because.....

Tomorrow, the plumber comes to fix the hot-water cylinder! (wooooohoooooo!). We have had no hot water since Quake#2, exactly one month ago, therefore it is beyond exciting to be a fully restored member of 'those that bathe in their own bathroom'. I guess, in this instance, CP, I may exercise my right to feel ridiculously privileleged. Don't mind if I do.