At this late stage of life, science documentaries are carefully curated. A television series documenting the underground life of Meerkats, for example, is okay, but a series on the degeneration of the brain over time is not. You understand.
The ability for Meerkats to burrow and work together is a wonder of the world, their cute eyes and sharp repetitive barks warning relatives of mortal danger. It’s informative to note Meerkats don’t live past 20 years no matter how effective their predator warning system is or how loud they bark. Why whatever (or whoever) is responsible for Meerkats designed them to die shortly after they are old enough to buy beer is a subject for a book-length essay.
The design of life leads to the question of longevity in humans. We are not the longest living species on this planet. Glass Sponges in Antarctica are estimated to be 10,000 years old. Greenland Sharks, the oldest living thing with a “spinal column” get to be 400 years old.* In a testament to variety, the Mayfly lives for 24 hours. It is an arguable assertion to say humans live an “average” life span depending on whether you use the mean, median, or mode method of statistical analysis. Don’t expect an explanation of any of those terms since I had problems with Statistics in every educational or informational context it was encountered.**
A documentary on Chinese Dynasties was borderline okay. When you watch the actions of a civilization over thousands of years, you are made aware of how short a human’s life span is, and how unimportant a single life is when looked at with a “Dawn of Time” perspective. With every new Dynasty there was a required purge of the last. Wonder what the average life span of dynastic lives was back in the day.
The documentary lasted 8 hours. The amount of death, birth, plotting, killing, and human advancement in those 8 hours left me gloomy but glad to be born in the 20th century.
Last week a documentary about medical advances slipped past my Early Warning System. It began with a few minutes of positive reporting of new ways to treat hemorrhagic strokes but abruptly swerved into explaining exactly what those strokes are. It was too late for me to escape, fascinated by the way doctors used to remove large pieces of the bony skull to access the problem but now make repairs through a hole the size of a quarter. All of a sudden the show was detailing how a titanium probe was gently forcing its way bast lobes of the brain in search of the blood vessel killing the man who was unfortunate enough to be attached to this particular brain.
I found the fortitude to turn off the tv only after remembering an age-old “centering” mantra, a favorite “safe” phrase: “There but for The Grace of God, go I.”
It sucks to get old and it is a cruel trick to play on young people. But what else is there? What else could we do? Not even the Antarctic sponges live forever.****
One thought should never be forgotten: The observation of Jacques in Act II, Scene VII of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It”.
In case you aren’t familiar, it is a comedy.***
*Unless man or boat intervenes.
**Specifically with probability. If you flip a coin what are the chances it will be heads or tails? And why does the probability change just because the previous ten flips came up heads?
***For more levity, read Jacques’ “Seven Ages of Man”. Know anyone who wears Number 6?
****How the hell do we know?
