Biology Panic Attack
Whenever I think too hard about all the complex mechanisms that are at play just to make every single fractional moment of our lives a livable moment, you know in which we are actually alive, I get a little freaked out by the process. I mean, think about the basic bodily systems that need to function in such perfect calibration - the brain, the lungs, the heart, etc - just to keep us alive and ticking. Then think of the complex networks of nerves and blood and organs, all of these things working together round the clock every single moment of our lives.
Our bodies are hard working machines, and the intricacies of their infrastructure are mind boggling. In fact, when I think about them in too much detail, I begin to panic. I wonder how it is possible that the whole thing can keep itself together without experiencing regular “system failures.” Just think of all the machines we use in our daily lives and the endless problems they have - from cars to computers to dishwashers. Hard drives crash. Crank cases crack. Engines blow. My daughter’s stuffed animals need the occasional arm sewed back. The electric mechanism on her night light fails. Toilets get plugged and need to be plunged or replaced. How is it that our bodies manage to function and not break down or completely implode on a daily basis when we push them to such extreme limits of use all the time and we rarely take them in for servicing? In fact, they didn’t even come with a service warranty. When you think about it, our bodies never stop working. They’re even working when they’re sleeping. Why don’t they break down more often?
Then I throw in the genetic factors. The DNA and the molecular targets, the seeming infinite number of electric and molecular signals and pathways that make us function. Fuck the basic organs and the fact that our heart has to beat and our lungs have to breathe in order for us to stay alive. Let’s talk about the ZILLIONS of signals that are working inside our bodies, these mounds of flesh and bone we take for granted. It is simultaneously mind-boggingly awesome that we are such amazingly complex organisms, but it is also REALLY SCARY AND FREAKY. I mean, one signal goes wrong and you’re fucked. How is it that we manage to keep our signals straight? I’ve learned a lot about the molecular structure of the human organism over the years, and while I find it all infinitely fascinating, I also find it really alienating and claustrophobic. I mean, we think of ourselves as these flesh and blood creatures who are driven by emotion, but the closer we look at us biologically, the more we are just this kind of random miracle of signals and systems that somehow seem to keep ticking even when it seems that there are an infinite number of components that could fail us (and kill us or seriously fuck us up) at any given moment. Thinking about this causes me to have a Biology Panic Attack. While zillions of scientists study this stuff, it also seems to be so far out of our control. We study individual components and try to figure them out, but we never really understand the whole, and in a way, we never really have agency over our own biological nature.
I’m a big one on agency. I absolutely hate feeling out of control. I cannot stand to relinquish control of myself, and I like to have my hands on the reins in my life at all times. But when it comes down to the bottom line, I never really have my hands on the reins, because I am always being driven by this complex biological network that makes up my living breathing body and being. Sure, I try to treat my body well and give it what it needs to be healthy, but at the end of the day, how much control do I really have over my body? My genetic map has been sketched in stone. I am so full of roads and highways, hazards and loopholes that I will never control. I’m being driven through life in a car that’s driving itself down highways I can’t even see. That’s what I’m talking about. So I don’t know if I’m going to crash into a wall tomorrow or drive over a cliff the next day. And the more I learn about human biology, the more the possibilities for these crashes seems to increase. And that freaks me out a little bit.
So I need to acknowledge my knowledge of biology, nod my head to its awesomeness, read about the various discoveries as if they really are going to lead us anywhere, but then I just need to put it all aside and do things like make art or write and not think about what specific part of the dazzling array of dna sequencing on my personal map makes me make the art I make or prompts me to write the things I write, like this for example. What little electric or molecular signal traveled inside my body and triggered my brain to carve out this stream of words on a keyboard with my fingers and then post them so you can read them? I have no fucking idea. That’s what.