2020 Q3 - The Tiger, Low Back Disorders, & Hell Yeah or No

The Tiger by John Valiant

This was not my usual kind of read… and, I absolutely loved it! You can tell that the author took his time researching the story from so many different angles. It’s a multilayered and true story about the search for a vengeful man-eating Siberian Tiger (check out this video if you’re unfamiliar with these cats) in a remote corner of eastern Russia. How far east? Well, it’s so far east that it’s a closer flight from there to Australia than it is from there to Moscow. The author did a really nice job of blending local history (Russian, Chinese, Korean), local ecology (man & nature, man & tiger, etc.), and human emotions into the story of the hunt. You can get a taste of the book by watching the authors TED Talk. Here are a few quotes from The Tiger:

  • Lenin may have envisioned it, but Stalin mastered it: the ability to disorient and disconnect individuals and large populations, not just from their physical surroundings and core communities but, ultimately, from themselves.

  • ”Men carry their superiority inside; animals outside.” - Russian Proverb

  • “It’s not vodka; it’s a time machine!”.

  • If you think that freedom is anarchy, you will not survive.

  • it was a payoff that would come with a unique set of complications and liabilities—kind of like selling a briefcaseful of stolen cocaine.

  • Russians say, ‘Trust in God, but keep your eyes open.’

  • “There are two categories of people when it comes to extreme situations,” said the leopard specialist Vasily Solkin. “One gets scared first and then starts thinking; the other starts thinking first and gets scared after the fact. Only the latter survive in the taiga.”

  • … we are such prisoners of our subjective experience that it is only by force of will and imagination that we are able to take leave of it at all and consider the experience and essence of another creature—or even another person.

  • Witnesses, native and Russian alike, agree that there is something almost metaphysical about the tiger’s ability to will itself into nonbeing—to, in effect, cloak itself. In the Bikin valley, it is generally believed that if a tiger has decided to attack you, you will not be able to see it. With the exception of the polar bear, which also hunts by stealth, there is no other land mammal this big whose survival depends on its ability to disappear.

  • The most notorious modern case of inherent man-eating occurred in the Njombe district of present-day Tanzania between 1932 and 1947. During this period, a single pride of fifteen lions killed approximately 1,500 people before George Rushby, a legendary British elephant-hunter-turned-game-warden, exterminated the pride, one by one. It took him a year.

  • One reason people find it so difficult to describe how they feel is that they have never been asked. It is understood that life is hard and men, especially, are expected to suck it up and gut it out.

  • The brandname Viagra is derived from vyaaghra, the Sanskrit word for tiger.

  • As menacing as they appear, tiger fangs are actually delicate instruments—literally, bundles of nerves and blood vessels encased in layers of bonelike dentin, sheathed in enamel and somewhat rounded at the ends. With these four surgical sensors, the tiger has the ability to feel its way through prey, differentiating between bone and tissue types to find the gap between two vertebrae in order to sever the spinal cord, or locate the windpipe in order to stifle the air supply—all at attack speed. In this sense, the canines are sentient weapons, capable of grasping and puncturing but also of deciphering the Braille of an animal’s anatomy. As removed as we are from our own origins in the wild, our teeth possess the same sensitivity, and we rely on it daily whether we are gnawing a T-bone, love-biting a nipple, or detecting rot in an apple by resistance alone.

  • captives of inertia and the comfort of the known.

Low Back Disorders by Stuart McGill

The amount of highlighting in this book was incredibly high. I can’t help but recommend this book to every Physical Therapist (or, for those outside the US... “Physiotherapist”). He has a definite lean toward a biomechanical approach that takes a very in-depth exploration during evaluation, followed by a strictly guided exercise regimen. One benefit of this book is that it provides the clinician with a framework that allows utilization of the teachings in the book. If you are a PT/Physio who has experience with PNF (beyond the stereotypical contract-relax), then you will really find this book intriguing because his emphasis on trunk engagement will be very familiar. Although the book utilizes a number of PNF principles, he reached these same principles from a lens of spine biomechanics, research, and clinically tested approaches.

Here are some of the concepts from the book:

  • Proximal stiffness enhances distal mobility and athleticism

  • Exercise regimens for spinal health should focus on endurance of spinal stiffness more than strength

  • Spinal stiffness is more important that enhancing spinal mobility

  • Many doctors are a bit too quick to rule out mechanical factors contributing to back pain, and too quickly default to psychological origins for their back pains.

  • Muscle strength cannot predict who will have back troubles.

  • The long standing concept that tissues heal within 6-12 weeks is flawed. Ligaments can take “years to recover from relatively minor insult.”

  • When it comes to musculoskeletal health, nothing can replace a thorough clinical examination. Not even fancy MRI or CT-scan images.

I will most likely re-read the book in the next 2-4 weeks and begin implementing some of the concepts and principles of the text into my clinical practice. 

Hell Yeah or No by Derek Sivers

I thought Derek’s first book “Anything You Want” was absolutely unique in its honesty and communication of insights. His writing style is identifiably concise, open, and challenging to achieve. Since that book’s publishing Derek has taken a very deep dive into learning the ins & outs of publishing so that he could decide and create every little detail for this latest book. He made it available in a variety of digital formats, an audio format (his voice), and physical format. You can purchase all formats in 1 bundle for $19. He managed to optimize the book (especially digital) for his readers in ways that big publishers cannot. I can’t help but respect him for such a project. This is a book about “what’s worth doing” and are his “thoughts around what’s worth doing, fixing faulty thinking, and making things happen.” It’s a short & sweet read that's worth re-reading periodically. A few memorable quotes:

  • “Our actions always reveal our real values.”

  • “Someone who played football in high school can’t call himself an athlete forever. Someone who did something successful long ago can’t keep calling himself a success.”

  • “experience erases prejudice.”

  • “Old opinions shouldn’t define who we are in the future.”

  • “People say that your first reaction is the most honest, but I disagree. Your first reaction is usually outdated. Either it’s an answer you came up with long ago and now use instead of thinking, or it’s a knee-jerk emotional response to something in your past.”

  • “Empty time has the potential to be filled with great things. Time filled with little things has little potential.”

  • “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year, and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

  • “To assume you’re below average is to admit you’re still learning. You focus on what you need to improve, not your past accomplishments.”

  • “What got me here won’t get me there.”

  • “There are no smart people or stupid people, just people being smart or being stupid.”

  • “But the differences among men, and the differences among women, are much bigger than the differences between men and women.”

  • “Eventually you’ll realize that your beliefs were not correct — they were just the local culture of where you grew up. You’re a product of your environment.”

Links!

Jason Boddu