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Articles

Back Pain & Rationality

Mitchell Silver ponders the problem philosophically.

Every move I make is perilous: lacing my shoes, rising from a chair, the slight lean at the bathroom sink to pick up my toothbrush – all are fraught with risk. Although the vast majority of such movements, and considerably more vigorous ones too, pass without incident, every once in a while, without warning, I feel the ominous ‘click’. There’s no pain involved; hardly any immediate effect at all. However, the consequences of that click are all too predictable: I have ‘thrown my back out’. Within hours my back will lose flexibility, and by the next day I will be unable to walk or sit without pain.

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