Friday, September 4, 2020

Any virus calls the body into question







i resist at the facts about my body. they're too astounding. i lose all sense of control. 
      my veins are a 60,000miles long
      my blood travels 60,000 miles a day
      my blood travels through it three times minute
       my stomach lining replaced every seven days
       my eyes focus 100,000 times a day
all this goes on while i'm trying to cook dinner or solve a math problem. i have absolutely no awareness of what's happening. my body is on automatic pilot.

for someone like me who likes to be in control, this is a disaster! i feel terribly vulnerable, not just to illness but to fate. every move i make could disrupt the system. what if i accidently poison my blood?
     platelets created in my blood: 200 billion a day
i can't even grasp that. or 
     15 million blood cells destroyed every second
     2.5 million created every second
hmm, how is that disproportion solved?

some are more fun, like those of sleep. supposedly i think more in my sleep and am smarter. my body paralyzed while i'm in deep sleep. and i am to have erections every hour and a half during the night, even though i don't know it. what a shame, since a prostate operation destroyed that ability. it would be nice to be aware of them. if i were intelligent,  i would have more dreams. and my body is 98% replaced every year, which gives me hope of improvement.

unfortunately it seems to be working the other way. my brain 80% water and getting milkier, even though it's the most powerful computer, 3000 Ghz, even if it stops growing at 18. and the body can function without a brain, very evident in politics. and it's claimed it can have more ideas than atoms in the universe. if that is the case, no wonder i'm driven crazy by thinking and get very confused by all the contradictory things it invents. paradox and ambiguity seem to be my natural mode. 

given all this, with my skin shedding 600,000 particles an hour and it replacing itself every 27 days, my stomach acid able to dissolve razor blades, and my heart beating 100,000 times a day, holding myself together in the midst of the ordinary, not to mention a crisis, is no small task. yes, mindfulness is not all it's cracked up to be. as the chinese saying goes, you are blessed if you have a bad memory.