I had to get an MRI for some back troubles that don’t seem to go away. Thank God the tube has gotten wider and brighter, so this claustrophobe did not have to break into cold sweats. A very savvy and candid neurosurgeon delivered the news. A pretty good dose of stenosis and disc problems meant we would meet again in the not too distant future. C’est la guerre.

The detail was pretty amazing and my thoughts wandered to what if we could give an MRI to this crazy world of ours or at least its inhabitants? With a diagnostic and dispassionate eye what would we find? Geez Louise, we have cancers everywhere. We have had strokes of a sort and torn rotators but somehow we have still survived. Battered but not broken.

There are some parts that are still lean and mean but it seems they are hidden by too much body fat. They try to break through but sometimes they are just overwhelmed. We should probably do massive surgery but we are not sure if the corpus would survive. Chemotherapy? Life style changes? Probably all of the above. 

Where to Begin? The heart or the brain? It would seem to me that large, underutilized muscle between our shoulders is the place to be. Most of us started too many years ago with a clean slate. Baby’s don’t have biases, prejudice or murderous tendencies built in. All of that was inherited not in a genetic way but through our parents, siblings and environs to form our personalities and preferences. I guess that is called upbringing for better or worse. 

In a scary place called adolescence we aren’t sure if this is the way you want to be. A thing called self determination wants to try out things for ourselves. Yet the guard rails of parents and society are flashing,SLOW DOWN, while our hormones are screaming FULL SPEED AHEAD. Dare I defy authority? Tough decision and this starts to define our whole image of self. 

I fear we do not spend enough time at this stage and never really understand its import. These formative years are rife with opportunity and oh so many ways to screw up. We are looking for guidance but also respect. You have some pretty good ideas but too often are shouted down or brought to a screeching halt by a parent’s or teacher’s my way or the highway routine. 

I have three wonderful grandchildren who started in college this fall. I can only imagine what a complex and bewildering place the college campus is today. This is where we have to go back to the MRI  and take a long look at the heart. That is where we fill our body with life giving oxygen or venom. The heart knows best but that damn cranial cavity keeps wanting to make wrong turns. Cholesterol finds a comfy spot in our veins and important parts start to wither. I think those are the eyes and ears. What? I can’t hear you. 

This is the time in life where we become more involved in society or less so. I had a strong sense of family growing up. I was taught to help out around the house or around the town. In college and after I sought out people for camaraderie and probably recognition. Being pretty sensitive myself I was more aware of other people’s feelings. I saw hurt and knew what it felt like. I didn’t look down on people but into them. 

I worry today the that we have become more and more withdrawn. It is about me and not us. We go into silos that get smaller and smaller in size and outlook. We become jaded and intolerant by not even remotely trying to see the other side of the equation. Discomfort turns to anger and then to hate. Hate begets violence. At that point radical surgery becomes the only treatment. Most will say no, I will just keep going even if it kills me or us. 

The other day I just thought about the rest of the world. Look around  at each item in our purview. The chair, lamp, rug, golf ball, car, or airplane we are riding in. Think about how many persons went into each object. The English muffin or egg we eat. Do we really have the balls to say “I don’t need you!”? I am omnipotent and smug. I receive and don’t have to give anything back. We don’t need a God or other world power. I am God. Are we that arrogant?

David Brooks in a wonderful essay last week talked about humility. “Humility is not thinking lowly of yourself; it’s an accurate perception of yourself. It is the ability to cast aside illusions and vanities and see life as it really is.” I would love to find that on my MRI. Are we humble as a people and a country? Dunno. I will let you answer that. 

Our world is not that different from our bodies. If you peek inside us you will find thousands of nerves, blood vessels, organs, systems that work in perfect harmony to keep us living and breathing every day. They help each other out when one gets hurt or disabled. They absorb so many body blows we throw at them and have to figure out a way to keep going. Ditto our big blue marble. Sad but oh so humane true.

MRI’s can be a great way to give yourself a readout about how good or bad you are doing at life. I wish we could build a tube big enough to put our world into it. Unfortunately  when we go into the doctor’s office we may not be excited about our prognosis. Then again it might be a great place to start getting our act together.

As always

Ted The Great 

Factoids. 

It takes about 3400 people and 900 robots to build a car. That is not including various parts and computer systems.

t can take anywhere from 18 to 254 days for a person to form a new habit and an average of 66 days for a new behavior to become automatic.

The human organism consists of eleven organ systems. They are Integumentary System, Skeletal System, Muscular System, Nervous System, Endocrine System, Cardiovascular System, Lymphatic System, Respiratory System, Digestive System, Urinary System, and Reproductive System (Female and Male).

Your heart beats about 100,000 times in one day and about 35 million times in a year. During an average lifetime, the human heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times. Give a tennis ball a good, hard squeeze. You’re using about the same amount of force your heart uses to pump blood out to the body.

Most MRI machines cost $500-950k

Most scans cost $2-5k 

There are 193 countries in the world with a little over 8 billion people. The US has 50 states, 3143 counties, 19,502 municipalities. Makes you feel a little insignificant eh?