Who am I?

"Are you an organ donor?" she asked as a part of the intake processing at the doctor's office.

"Yes, of course."

But then I could not let go of that softball that was simply asking for trouble.

"Wait, did you say 'organ donor' or 'Oregon donor'?"

Haha!

Indeed, I have identified myself as an organ donor for quite some years now.  Well, as in they can harvest whatever they want when I am dying, or after my death. Not now, please!

As much as I am at ease with organ donation, I have never been sure how that fits into an overall understanding of what it is to be human.  I am not a mere sum total of my organs. We are all more than the mere sum of the parts.  If organs and even blood are treated nearly like how parts are replaced in a car, then are we really ok with such a conceptualization of humans with interchangeable components?

What if there are others who differ from such a take on organs and blood?  What if their understanding of what it is to be human means, for instance, even refusing blood transfusion?

While I have always been convinced about my atheistic framework and the carbon and nitrogen and hydrogen and oxygen and everything else that wonderfully come together to create a human body, there remains that emotional side of me that feels such a description to be prosaic.

Yes, intellectually I get it that there is a great deal of poetry in this.  The aesthetics of it all that Richard Feynman so clearly and beautifully presented:

I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts.

The flower is also a metaphor here--Feynman's thoughts on the flower can equally be applied to the human.  There are organs and cells and the complicated actions and a beauty.  Intellectually, I get it.  I don't have any problems with that formulation at all.  But, ...

In many contexts, without getting onto any soapbox, I routinely tell students that as we move forward, it will become more and more important to develop an understanding of what it means to be human.  I remind them that it is all the more important to take courses in the humanities and the social sciences.  But then they, too, are consistent with others who find life to be better if they did not pay any attention to what I have to say!

I have always had enormous sympathies for those who protest abortion, or stem cell research, or fertility treatments.  While the protesters might not always phrase their concerns as their struggles with what it means to be human, that is essentially what they are fighting about.  Of course, it is farcical when the protests become delusional about the scientific understanding.  But, deep down, it is a struggle about articulating an understanding of what it is to be human.  I suspect that most of us have our own concerns and worries on this issue, and I so wish that we could talk about our respective formulations without becoming unhinged and, even worse, resorting to attacking the person.

The story of humans on this planet has also been one of constantly modifying the narratives we have had on what it means to be human.  I wonder what our ancestors in Africa thought about about this soon after they invented language to think and communicate.  Whatever their version was, well, we have a completely different take on that question.  Our answers will continue to change into the future as we struggle to discover the answer.

My only disappointment is that I will never get to know the answer.

Have a little faith. This shot won't kill ya!

I do not hate going to the doctor's office.  But, I hate the part when I have to strip down to nothing for the examination.  I can't wait for the day when medical technology will have developed so much that I can stay fully clothed, in a gazillion layers!

"Continue doing whatever you are doing" the young doctor said at the end of it all.  "Everything looks very healthy."

But, of course, and now I can worry even more about living way past 100 until 120!

"Would you like a flu shot today?  I strongly recommend it."

In all these years, I have never had a flu shot.  My defenses, er, clothes were down and I was in a gown that seemed to open up at the wrong places all the time.  Feeling cornered, I said ok.

It is not that I am one of those paranoid about shots and vaccines.  Far from that.  I have all the faith in the scientific method.  Which is the very reason why I was at the doctor's office in the first place.

This faith in the scientific method is not the same as "faith" writes Jerry Coyne:

the “faith” we have in science is completely different from the faith believers have in God and the dogmas of their creed. To see this, consider the following four statements:

“I have faith that, because I accept Jesus as my personal savior, I will join my friends and family in Heaven.”

“My faith tells me that the Messiah has not yet come, but will someday.”

“I have strep throat, but I have faith that this penicillin will clear it up.”

“I have faith that when I martyr myself for Allah, I will receive 72 virgins in Paradise.”

I bet you can already see where he is going with this, right?

the third statement relies on evidence: penicillin almost invariably kills streptococcus bacteria. In such cases the word faith doesn’t mean “belief without good evidence,” but “confidence derived from scientific tests and repeated, documented experience.”
You have faith (i.e., confidence) that the sun will rise tomorrow because it always has, and there’s no evidence that the Earth has stopped rotating or the sun has burnt out. You have faith in your doctor because, presumably, she has treated you and others successfully, and you know that what she prescribes is tested scientifically.

A few years ago, my mother asked me why in the news experts suggest doing one thing and then change their stance later on.  She was referring to, if I remember correctly, studies on coffee's effects on health.  She was almost leaning towards "this is why I don't believe all these experts."  I told her that is how science works--we are constantly testing not only new ideas but even the old ideas.

To some extent, we can say that we don't have faith in the finding itself--all we know is that the scientific method leads us towards clarity.

One can dispel the “science as faith” canard in a single paragraph, and I’ll let Richard Dawkins have the honor:

There is a very, very important difference between feeling strongly, even passionately, about something because we have thought about and examined the evidence for it on the one hand, and feeling strongly about something because it has been internally revealed to us, or internally revealed to somebody else in history and subsequently hallowed by tradition. There's all the difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority, or revelation.

So the next time you hear someone described as a “person of faith,” remember that although it’s meant as praise, it’s really an insult.

When my doctor suggested the flu shot, it was not based on blind faith.  He has the backing of the scientific method and all the evidence.  As a reasonably well-informed curious fellow, I, too, am aware of the benefits of a flu shot.  So, why then did I not get a flu shot all these years?  Blame it on the arrogance of youth, when we feel nothing can harm us.  Today, I was caught with my pants down, literally!

Oh well.  I decided to celebrate the clean bill of health by cooking something special ... and I loaded it up with butter and cheese too.  After all, the data suggests that I will live for a lot longer, and I have faith in that evidence ;)

Memory for whatever number, Alex!

"I have never jotted down birthdays in any calendar, and have always operated from memory .... but, I suppose getting older means that some of the particulars fade away ... now, all I can remember is that your birthday is sometime about now"

That's how I began the birthday greetings to my old high school friend.

It is amazing how much my brain does not want to deal with fine detail anymore.  There once was a time, not too long ago, when I was actually, seriously, interested in the specifics.  Now, it is almost like I have a different brain altogether.  The other day, when I turned the television on, there was a movie. I recognized the actor. An old actor. A male actor. Also a director. Made some real good movies. And he has made plenty of appearances on television shows too.

The old me, er, the younger me that is, would not even have thought about this. Almost as a reflex, I would have remarked, "oh, Sydney Pollack."

Not the same anymore.  However, this does not bother me one bit.  Because, I am convinced that it is not short-term or long-term memory issue but changing priorities.  The name Sydney Pollack itself is not important anymore.  Life is not a game of Jeopardy!  As simple as that.

Similarly, it does not bother me that that I could not recall my old friend's date of birth.  I am way more delighted with the old memories.  Of friendship. Of the growing up angst.  Of the nerdy and stupid things we talked about way back when as we biked around town.

Growing older is wonderful that way--it is like sifting life through a sieve and the brain then figures out what is important enough to retain.  Instant recall is no longer an urgency.  The stories are what matter.  Good stories. Bad ones. Tough ones. Hilarious ones. Tragic ones.  Stories nonetheless.

The focus on the story and the sifting away of finer details like names or numbers means that slowly the stories morph in the retellings.  When I was younger, it was fun for us kids to even point out the inconsistencies in my grandmother's stories, to which her response often was தப்ப பிடிச்சு வாயில போடு (literally translating to "catch the mistakes and put them in my mouth" to imply that we kids had nothing better to do than do something that silly.)

I wonder how my own stories will morph as I get old and tell them again for the hundredth time.  One such story is about the number of gulab jamuns that I had in one sitting, during my undergraduate days.  I had, count 'em, twenty-two.  And it was after an all-you-can-eat lunch at our favorite Gujarati restaurant.  I can imagine that as I get older, the city name changing from Coimbatore to Calcutta; from my undergrad days to when I started working, from twenty-two to twenty-seven, and even gulab jamuns becoming rasagollas.  But, dammit, I will have stories. And they will be mine.

And, to make things easy, maybe I will begin to wish people happy birthday on the first of every January.