during my lifetime, my body generates more than 1000 pounds of red blood cells. my blood travels over 50,000 miles a day through arteries, arterioles, and capillaries, and back through the veins. it only takes seven pounds of pressure to rip off my ear.
no wonder i turn my eyes from those horrible videos my dentist shows in the waiting area: gum rot, broken teeth, money down the drain (speaking of flow). nothing stands still inside me or outside me. when i'm conscious of the earth's rotation, i develop bouts of vertigo. the waning of the moon actually painful.
from the age of thirty my body began shrinking. keeping me alive, my heart only weighs ten ounces. yet, combining all the muscles in the system i could be a huge force of 2000 pounds. and at least my tongue print as individual as those on my fingers. guess i don't need to get a distinguishing tattoo, after all.
and the hardest thing to swallow, 98% of my molecules replaced every year. hmm, lots of room for error in that process, ten trillion cells in my walking corpse. and most alarming, my eyes have stayed the same size but my nose has kept growing. my blood is really blue, my brain hasn't grown since age eighteen and it has no feeling! and i once spent half an hour as a single cell.
given all this, how can i possibly make a cup of coffee, tie my shoelaces, and climb into a car, much less drive one? obviously, i'm occupied by a divine force which will one day decide to leave me.
see what's coming in medicine: http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kraft_medicine_s_future.html is immortality just around around the corner and if i'm there, will i know it's me?
