you are made of beautiful things and beauty begets beauty

I received word today that a close, beloved relative of mine (of whom we've had a rocky relationship at times, which unfortunately is the headline of our relationship up to this point) had just been released from the hospital for a several-day affliction with his lifelong chronic illness. The illness has existed in many forms, over many years; and, if I had not known it was coming, would've infected me too. It has, in its own way. This is all very metaphorical, and I would never be a proponent of sharing genuine medical information on SpaceHey, a space for friends.

I have no idea what this means, and I don't believe it truly means anything. Our body's processes are convoluted, complex, beautiful, and most importantly; they are not permanent, and they are immutable. I cannot, as far as I know, will my cells to do anything they do not want to do. There is an interesting subthread to visit here, about how it's innately unfair to my neurons that I force them to do stuff they don't want to do every day, but for the most part, the cells that I consider constituting "my body" do not quite have the same workload. Do they ever get jealous of their pals? Do they share tales of their forefathers, in a language we could never possibly hear, lost to time and apoptosis?

It is my unfounded belief that cells experience wanting differently than I do. I feel it strongly; in my arms, my chest, and my eyes. Wanting and needing are the very foundation of my existence, and 80% of my day is devoted to fulfilling the needs and wants of myself (and my loved ones). I was happy with this; I thought it was noble. I feel that, now, I have become too enthralled in the world of wants and needs, and need to invest in building on the world of what I haves already.

How lucky am I to be so privileged, as a multi-cellular being, that I may choose?

Cells, as the basic building block of life, are the entirety of the lens through which you are viewing this blog post right now. I was no expert, but after spending several hours researching the matter out of curiosity, I now can proudly say that I definitely am no expert, and barely know what I don't know.

My dog farted on me, seven times in a minute, and refuses to stop licking me. Let's begin.

1. Photoreceptor cells (rods & cones) receive visual light data
2. Horizontal cells take visual light data and connect rods & cones to each other so they can synthesize data very quickly, and suppress unwanted stimuli. 
3. Bipolar neurons (brain cells) translate rods & cones signals to outgoing neurons
4. Amacrine cells (a type of neuron) integrate visual signals, and focus on things like edge detection.
5. Retinal ganglion cells (more neurons) facilitate sending data to the optic nerve
6. Special shoutout to all the cells that also nourish the sensing cells, the eyeball moving cells (muscle), the eyeball focusing cells, and last but not least; the god damn cells that make up the freaky eyeball in the first place. Gross.

Ladies and gentleman, thank you for taking the Eyeball Express. We are now entering the Brain. Please keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times. I hate when people poke my brain.

1. Oligodendrocytes make myelin in the brain (greasing the rails, so info can flow smoothly)
2. Astrocytes support and regulate blood flow in the brain (need blood to get oxygenated)
3. Thalamic relay neurons send visual signals from the eyes to the visual cortex for processing
4. Pyramidal neurons handle the complex thinking and processing associated with vision. Note - a lot of the act of seeing has already happened before we even got here, which is the first step that is purely in the brain.
5. Wernicke's and Broca's are two areas of the brain specialized in reading comprehension and internal speech, two vital areas for reading in the brain. The neurons that are here do the bread and butter of the reading.

This is your final stop. Thank you for reading, cell.

This is a masterpiece. The fact that we can see at all, and I can watch my dog quiver as she farts on me since she went outside and ate stuff she wasn't supposed to, is an affront to the elegant parsimony of Nature. Does Nature cry out in despair at God's wonders, doomed to scream in languages that only she can understand? Have our eyes and ears and noses and feet and hands stripped the beauty of the untouched away from Nature, and now her lament has been confined to only the places we can no longer hear her?

It would be quite the misread to believe that Nature has ever shuddered at humanity's best efforts to contain her. 

This is, so far, an exceptionally nerdy entry. Thank you for sticking with me. Likely, if you already know about this stuff, you could find 100 different ways to discredit my little writeup here because I've missed the nuances that is a big part of why you love what you do. I'm sorry. I understand how you feel, because people do this about the things I love all the time. Bear with me, and we will feast on the fruits of our labor together when this all comes to pass.

Let's return to Wanting.

Do you, reader, want? Do you dream? Do you desire? Do you Have, and still Want? The cell teaches us something very peculiar about the relationship between the Having, and the Wanting. The cell is not conscious (hopefully, based on what I'm doing to my own). The cell does not register desires. It cannot, on its own, start its own little cell blog on its little cell phone cellphone, and write about how it yearns for the good ol' days when its telomeres were still in their prime and the sands of time had not yet withered away. 

Had we the capability of getting a beer together, I suspect me and my cells would see eye to eye about the tragedies of existing. We would laugh, buy each other a drink, share war stories, and swap tales of the same events from each other's view. The evening would meld into night and the moon would illuminate two oddballs tucked into a booth; one a human, and the other merely a tiny voice emanating from the first microscope this bar has ever seen. To the outside observer; simply a madman, who has surrendered to the night.

hhey dude imm gonna  go get another drink. you want sommthin?

what did you say? i what?

YOU WANT SOMMTHIN?

im small not deaf. WANT? W-A-N-T?

YEAH W-want, yeah. like you know, ya wish ya hadit?

this is my first time wishing for anything. what is a good thing to want?

-

iim not really sure. i've never not wanted something orrother. 

i have only ever experienced need. i have never wished for anything more but to stay alive and be true to myself and my mission. i do so i do not die

Cells are not conscious. They are masterpieces of spectrums, equilibriums, thresholds, imbalances, and feedback loops that, in the right light, look like they yearn.

They experience our "wanting" with the entirety of their mortality wagered on every step. They desire equilibrium and homeostasis; peace and zen. Even in the violent wars waged everyday internally, cells are happiest when they are well-fed, well-energized, doing their jobs, and in the right environment. Only when the cell does not want, can it enable its larger structure to feel the joy of wanting, and pursuit, and achievement, and desire, and all the rest of the things that make it worth it. The ultimate sacrifice. Please, remember them. Be kind.

They have known nothing but fear. They have done nothing but overcome.