Author: bmmcmanus

Life is filled with puzzles.  We are perplexed by the immensity of our ignorance about how various parts of the universe or parallel-universe really work.  Throughout the spectrum from ultra-tiny to massively huge, a depth of complexity challenges us to learn, to know, when it is too puzzling to ever fully comprehend.

As I complete another jigsaw puzzle, my mind and soul wander to the enigma of COVID19, and how its complexity baffles us, stymies us, overwhelms us, takes lives. How COVID19 will fit into  the daily array of hazards we face as a species……infections, non-communicable diseases, mental health difficulties, drug overdoses, accidents and intended harm…….is utterly unclear.  We are fully stretched in imagining our social, psychological, ethical, physical and spiritual dilemma that now shrouds us.  We feel humbled, inadequate, embarrassed, and doubtful.  We grieve for all of those we have lost or have lost others.

It is so complex. Part of interlocking puzzles we face.

Somehow in the midst of the chaos of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the peaceful habits of the local birds in our neighbourhood are soothing.

Although there have been ducks and a few geese in our water hazard pond for a long time, I hadn’t noticed the rigour of their routine. In the morning, the ducks arise from their homes in the reeds, and gather for a breakfast in the grass that lines the hazard and along the rough on hole #16. Their group appears like a club, as they move for a while in syncopated harmony, poking their bills into the grass, finding various tasty pieces to munch on. After a time, the pairs of mamma and papa ducks gradually pair-off.  They continue their feed, either in the grass as they graze or upon slipping back into the pond. In the afternoon they get pretty intense with their mini-dives, tipping up their tails and submerging their heads for a few seconds for a little more in their diversified diet.

Meanwhile, “Harvey” the heron appears, splitting his time between the line of water hazards from hole #13 through #17.  He seems to spend a little time in each for safety.  He is always watching whatever is going on around him, and while he will stand or walk slowly on the water’s edge, he will usually move from pond to pond, keeping a distance from any curious human. Occasionally Harvey has a friend with him, a smaller heron, perhaps younger, perhaps his partner. They hangs out together in a quiet, rather stark manner. Their physical beauty is amplified when they lift off on their short flights, with enormous wingspans, and elongate, delicate bodies.

Much higher up, quietly soar the eagles.  Now there is a sight of majesty and beauty. They are truly among the most gorgeous of flying species. Calmly surveying the earth, with sharp vision, often hunting from on high. Yet, their soaring is also just a skill that they employ to get away from the earth, to pass silently in the coastal breezes, probably smiling as they go, if indeed an eagle can smile.

The human race is in a race with a virus. We are quite stunned by the omnipotence of the novel coronavirus, dubbed COVID19, as it now holds our attention.  We are transfixed by this latest of global scourges that remind us so well that we are part of an ecosystem that micro-organisms largely rule. Various “bugs” participate in our daily lives, largely unseen, but in powerful ways that determine the health of much larger beings in a range of flora and fauna throughout the fabric of our small blue planet.

Viruses are obligate intracellular invaders.  They require a symbiosis with hosts like humans, wherein we share our cells for them to live, often, like COVID19, much to our detriment.  If the virus has a cellular receptor that allows easy access to our cells, it will unintentionally harness our cells for its one survival and thrival.  In doing so, it harms our cells, turns on our immune systems like a fire alarm, and the biological chaos then unfolds, at times to the point of host system failure and death. If we cannot block the invasion, like a home invasion, and if this invasion happens over and over again, populations are ravaged. And while viruses cannot live long outside of cells they can be passed like COVID19 in droplets that come from exhaled or coughed up material, passed on from on human to another, and another. This viral concourse soon becomes an epidemic, and in certain circumstances, like COVID19, a world-wide pandemic.

It is often likened that stopping the viral pandemic, saving sick patients, saving the healthcare system, saving our sanity, is akin to a world war. Indeed, right now, it is a world war. Many more than the 650,000 who have already been clinically affected by infection will be infected, many more than the current 50,000 deaths will occur.

But, given the capacity of the virus to continue depends on populations without substantial non-specific and specific immunity to the organism, and given the modern-day capacity to rapidly study the virus, develop therapies that stall it, and develop vaccines to prevent its invasion, humans will succeed in bringing COVID19 to a standstill. Carnage will be left behind, but we will be stronger and more resistant to another plausible invasion by the pathogen.

As Daniel Kalla, emergency physician and novelist, has written.  It is taking a full-on village of compassion, science, technology, and logistics to stop COVID19.  The local, regional, national and transnational effort that we are bringing this scourge, should sear thoughts and actions into beings that also require an “all hands on deck” approach to solve, and which cause much suffering in our communities and those far and wide. This latest pandemic is a wake-up call for how the sensibility of humans should be mobilized for life to be of higher quality, of greater length, and more productive and creative. The requirements that COVID19 was placed on all beings, all disciplines, all walks of life, all sectors, all geopolitical jurisdictions should signal a new approach to how we value each other, how we solve many pressing health and social problems, while fostering the most innovative and transformative science, engineering and arts environment ever imagined possible.

Every little bit helps.

Life is a flower. It grows from a sturdy stalk spawned from good roots. It may seasonal, annual, semi-annual or perennial. The kind of flower that life becomes is largely unknown to us.  What appears to be the future of the flower often is not what the flower becomes. Flowers of life have their own unique life-cycle of beauty. Flowers eventually age and reach senescence. Life is much the same, a special, rather short flowering and then a steadiness, and waning like the heat of the sun in late evening.

We are drawn to flowers because of their colours, their textures, their shapes and their sizes. We are drawn to life itself for the same reasons. The myriad combinations of features in our experiences, exposures, reactions and outcomes along the journey are most fascinating and appealing.

Today I bought a dozen roses.  Each set of three roses is a different colour – pink, peach, variegated red and white, and red.  Beauteous together, they reflect the depth and breadth of my love for my wife, Janet, along life’s bountiful evolution.  Thanks for your love Janet.

Fractals are amazing mirrors of our non-linear dynamics, in all of life and nature I believe. Fractals from an imagery point of view, in the scaled, consistent statistical character, are so beautiful, whether in the pattern of bronchial branching, the make-up of capillary beds, the shape of a great oak tree, the scallops of a beach’s sand, the clouds in the sky, or ridges of mountains running as a range. The mathematics underlying fractility are too complex for me.  But the essential character of a fractal is a visual delight. Fractals are the fundamental pattern of our lives structurally and functionally. They remind us that there really are rare situations wherein mirror-images exist, and that such kind of perfection is not consonant with the human condition.  We are all a little lop-sided, uneven, and irregular, but well-patterned. It is this quality that makes us interesting, memorable, distinctive and special as biological organism. I love fractals.

I like speed bumps and humps.  While they are slightly different, with bumps being narrower and less prominent than humps, they serve a similar purpose.  That purpose is to slow down or “quiet” traffic on a given road or street or lot. They are significant reminders or alerting structures that help drivers to be more cautious and sensible in their driving.

I actually like the feeling of a vehicle when it passes gently over a speed bump or hump. It is like a low-intensity carnival ride. Just enough of a jiggle to stimulate one’s positional sensors.

In broader terms, speed bumps have metaphorically been identified as little obstructions or irritations that interrupt one’s life. Such speed bumps or humps can be little setbacks in health, in family, or in professional life. They, like real speed bumps or humps, often give one pause, bring a little new awareness or a new way of thinking or feeling. Such interruptions bring a refreshed focus and appreciation for roads well traveled or less traveled, either one. A pause in our lives is sometimes missing when it would do much good for personal health and well-being.  It gives one license to breathe a little slower, move a little slower, to enjoy each moment a little more.

Thanks for speed bumps and humps.  They make us better, more peaceable people.

In watching a little of the NHL play-off game last evening, and seeing a quite devastating hit that led to hospitalization of the targeted player, it reminds us of the precious nature of our head! Yes, our brain resides there.  Our brain is not very reparable.  It is adaptable over time, but when severely injured, it can be a long time, or forever, before it heals with functional restoration. Our consciousness about the vulnerability of the head and the brain inside the skull has been raised in recent years.  A renewed focus on traumatic brain injury rendered by accidents and by “contact” sports has made us realize that single or especially multiple blows to the head can have acute, cumulative and long-term consequences for the recipient of such events.

It makes me wonder why we did not see evolution of the brain as a distributed organ, such that one blow to the head does not cause irreparable, unfixable damage to our vital reigning organ of thought, perception, language, memory and emotion. Given that all of the exquisite processes of neurological and psychological competence are housed in our head, any given blow can take out several critical related and unrelated functions and capabilities. It is a little late now in the evolutionary progression for a distributed brain, but it would have been beneficial if there was a reserve house elsewhere than the head. We are gifted reserve in most organ functions of the body, needing only about 1/3 of lung or kidney function to maintain respiratory or urinary competence, needing only 80% of left ventricular function to maintain a good circulation, and so forth. But the intricacies of neuronal connections and networks leave the brain at risk of multi-functional loss for which there is little reserve.

I vote for a distributive brain!

On the day on the first game of the Stanley Cup Finals, and a day after Canada lost to Finland in the gold medal game at the IIHF World Championship, it is worth thinking about time.  Yes, time, small amounts of time that often determine victory or defeat. Yes, that is half-seconds of time.

In fast moving games like ice hockey, a half second resonates in the minds of coaches, players and fans alike. For in a half second, one player is just ahead of getting to the puck before an opposing player, a goaltender is just anchored against the post before a blistering shot arrives, a check is delivered that catches an opponent off-balance, a shot is blocked for a breakaway, a line change is made properly to prevent an odd-man rush, a shot is sent towards an open net as time winds down, and more. While half-seconds may be long periods of time when speaking of light-speed, in sports they are really the quiet ingredients of a game that, after several periods, determine the result.

I have been thinking about this half-second “thing” for a long time. It is so obvious how many half-seconds add up to success of failure in many sporting activities beyond ice hockey……..skiing and bobsledding events, sprinting, speed-skating, horse racing, swinging for a home run,  and many more. Half-seconds mean a lot in other parts of our lives, be they related to decisions made while driving a car, the chances you get on an elevator whose door is closing, blinking your eyes when pieces of dirt are blowing in the wind, being in complete harmony with your partnered singing performer, or catching a great photograph of a hawk catching prey.

Even those things we don’t see or feel are affected in major ways by those half-seconds.  Just think of the millions of molecular motions, interactions and activation states that are far less than a half second in duration. The consequences in terms of health and disease of all of these miniscule moments in time is really a symphony of concurrent dynamics that render our state of being. A magnificently powerful, albeit occult system, one which operates really in all living things.

If these short thoughts, that have taken a little longer than a half second, move you to think about the use of time as short bits adding up to big bits, I will feel that exposing my reflection has been worthwhile…..even if for just a half second.