give pause
I. not a second to lose hurry to work, to school to deadlines and meetings to work, papers, readings go hustle move don’t stop I need to get on top of things no time to sleep get up and repeat
II. incessant activity to do lots of stuff endlessly busy and as always in a rush always producing, never ever regressing burning fuel, always growing, not ever slowing like a neoplasm in an ever-expanding lump
III. which becomes cancer
IV. The body’s normal defense against abnormal growth is apoptosis (pronounced ap-a-tow’ – sis) or programmed cell death or suicide. This system becomes defective in cancer.
V. Although we normally speak of apoptosis in the removal of potentially cancerous cells, it has another role, arguably more important, in that it essentially makes us who we are.
VI. Although rapid growth occurs during the development of humans in utero, even more dramatic is the amount of death that occurs. Apoptosis, by removing the unnecessary, sculpts the body, shapes the organs, carves out the fingers and toes, and makes you you. Similarly, the nervous and immune systems arise through overproduction of cells followed by massive amounts of cell death. Over half of the neurons and glial cells in your body died before you were able to become a cognitively functioning human being. Even as an adult, the body is maintained by killing off roughly 10 billion cells each and every day(1,2).
VII. Elimination makes us who we are. Death gives us Life.
VIII. The absence of this necessarily precise elimination results in uncontrolled growth which rebels against our own body.
IX. Less sometimes is more.
X. Slow down. Pause a moment. Rest. When was the last time you spent time to do absolutely nothing at all. Its difficult. It takes a while for all the activity to settle.
What is important to you? What do you believe? What is it that makes you who you are? What isn’t that makes you who you are?
There is a story of a boy walking on the beach collecting colorful sea shells. His hands are full of pieces of once living sea life, when he comes upon a rock with a large starfish on it. Instead of running toward the starfish and taking it, he simply looks dismayed. When his parents ask what is wrong and why he doesn’t go get the starfish, he begins to cry, “My hands are full of sea shells and I can’t pick it up.” (3)
References
1) Naegele J, Lombroso PJ. Development of the Cerebral Cortex: VIII. Apoptosis: Neuronal Hari-Kari. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 37(8): 890-892, 1998.
2) Heemels MT. Nature Insight: Apoptosis. Nature. 407(6805): 769, 2000.
3) Bell, Robert H Jnr. Drops Like Stars. Zondervan. 2009.
Additional thanks to …
the late Dr. Paul Brand and his book Fearfully & Wonderfully Made for illustrating how the body can be used as a metaphor for truth and my mother for giving me the book as a gift, partly because she wanted me to become a physician.
Carl Honore for encouraging people to slow down and my better half for sending me his talk.
Rob Bell for his NOOMA video on noise and silence, other ideas, and his style of writing
Nice referencing.