Yet Another Example of the Seemingly Symbiotic Relationship Between Boredom and Purpose

Dean Liao

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In post-industrial society, the relationship between labor and leisure is torrid. All play and no work makes jack a broke boy; all work and no play makes jack a supplicant Subsumed by mixed messages, we stum ble around blindly, clutching tightly to our narrative of choice, inventing ourselves as we go along. Production is both death and existence We are merely the currency for transaction. A closer look and what do you see?

Just another false profit.

Evaluation

Rich Furman

“Your body is going to need to remember how to move. Your quad riceps are going to forget, in a sense, how to work.”

The large, open physical therapy room has two other therapists working with their patients. They encourage each of them to move their limbs an inch or two more Come on You can do it. Push. I listen to the grunts and moans—a man perhaps twenty years older than I and a small fig of a woman perhaps thirty years older. The black vinyl therapy table feels tacky and unnatural as I move my body into positions and poses upon request.

“You’re going to have pretty extensive carpentry performed on you, and your body is going to forget how to function.”

This is our pre-surgical physical therapy intake, and Dr Matt ma nipulates my limbs in ways they have not moved since my days of kink or Hatha yoga. He announces numbers with authority and satisfaction: I seem to be passing. 132 degrees with one knee, 131 with the other. My legs straightened to a wink shy of zero degrees. He tests the strength of my quads and hamstrings.

“You’re really strong How are you keeping up with strength train ing?” Dr. Matt asks.

It’s been a couple of years since I have thought of myself as strong. My knees have been making me unsteady at random, unpredictable times, as if any unexpected bump or small disturbance might send me to the ground.

I tell him about the body-weight squats I do every other day, ne glecting to share that as my body descends the last few inches toward my floor, I worry about blacking out from the pain. I’m not worried about doing more damage to my deformed hinges they are coming out any n

Furma how and I read that leg strength and range of motion are associated with positive outcomes

“I would have thought that would hurt a great deal,” Dr. Matt half suggests, half asks.

“It’s manageable ”

He grins, slightly cockeyed, kind but disbelieving. We talk about exercises I will need to do after the surgeon cuts open my leg, carves out the troubled tissue, and saws smooth the bones that are now splintered and failed. Dr. Matt has me perform each exercise several times, move ments that two years ago I would have scoffed at, discounted as being for the weak. I used to say that walking was exercise for unfit people. But now, I am starting to realize that in a few weeks, any remaining smirk will be wiped right off my face.