Numerology

A few years ago I came across another teacher at the college I teach at who claimed to know something about numerology. He was in his mid eighties and had been studying it for 30 or 40 years. I have always had a broad interest in all things natural and supernatural, and I knew that numerology (whatever it was) fit into one category or the other. So, instead of just explaining it to me, he just gave me a reading. I don't remember all of the information he gathered from me, but my birth date was one item on the list. (I still have the paper he wrote for me somewhere.) It did not take him long and I was caught off guard by how much he knew about me as a result of the reading (I suppose). Right away he told me that I love to learn, that I'm a lifelong student, that I'm not happy unless I'm learning, and that this is a burden on me. This is all true, and he seemed to know about my personal struggle of always needing to learn, and constantly seeking (but rarely finding) fulfillment through learning. In my experience, this is not a common struggle. Even among my colleagues (at a college), there are none I know of who seem to have broad academic interests. Even if I am typical, and he made a good guess, it was even more surprising that he knew that it was a source of psychological pain for me.

In any case, he knew me as well as I knew myself, and seemed to be able to do it with numerology alone. But he made one more prediction: he said that in my late thirties (roughly, I can't remember) that the burden and psychological pain that my desire to learn causes me will abate. Time will tell.

Tennis Elbow

I guess it was about 3 years ago that my tennis elbow became too painful and uncomfortable to ignore. Many years before that, I had just begun to irritate the tendon by fidgeting while reading, thinking and studying. Then it was the enormously strenuous and time consuming task of pruning our Lady Banks roses that took me to the stage of the injury that warranted a trip to the doctor. The original prescription of rest and ice made it moderately better, but did not cure it. Furthermore, re-injury was very easy. About one year after the first appointment with the doctor, I started physical therapy. The short story on that is the pain is gone, and my comfort level is quite good. The problem is that re-injury seems to still be too likely, since 4 months after finishing physical therapy the pain and discomfort is back, for no good reason. Once again, I am very certain it was thinking, reading, and fidgeting that did it. Originally, when the pain was back, I tried to do the same physical therapy exercises that helped me last summer. But it seemed that they only made it worse. Should I have gone trough a period of rest first? I remember that while attending the therapy sessions last summer, I was advised would work through some of the mild pain. I guess I done know at what point to start the exercises. In any case, I have done mostly rest for a week or so. And today I decided to try some of the exercises. Before I started, there was some pain, but it was mostly discomfort, "tightness" and weakness in the tendon. As I did the exercises, I had the idea that they have to be done "just right." For example, jerky movements are no good. When I was doing eccentric loading with the dumbbell, I would use two hands, and very gradually release the weight with my right hand as I made the eccentric motion very slowly with the weight in my left hand. The bottom line is that it felt very good, and had continued to feel good for the rest of the day. I guess it's only beneficial to definitely use the tendon, but without causing any pain or discomfort; there's a balance between the two to work for. I'm excited about this since, as far as I understand, tendons do not tend to heel properly once injured. They are slow to heal, and heal with some sort of weaker tissue that is vulnerable to re-injury. Apparently, eccentric loading does cause a more proper and resilient healing of the tendon. So, this time around I will practice my physical therapy, but keep doing so well past the point of relief in hoping to restore the tendon as much as possible.