The River's Parable

The river's purpose is not to reach the ocean or lake. And for it to die there. That is because its work is done along its journey as it travels downward but it is not about reaching  a destination.  

I paraphrased that from somewhere I read a while back but didn't quite get what context it was trying to convey. Indeed, is the river's aim then  not on where it will end but what it does along the way? I see the parable of the river of life upon which all of us are a part of.

So we begin with, "Why do we have rivers in the first place?"

Unless one lives along a river bank, or on a river cruise along the Danube, the Mississippi or the Yellow river or the Mekong, or watching the news on flood disasters, rivers do not pre-occupy one's thoughts.  Let's for a moment focus on it.

Let's see. We have rivers because we have mountains and hills. And  we ask, "Why do we have mountains in the first place?"

It took a lot of energy over eons of time to create mountains and hills alongside them. Undersea volcanic eruptions gave rise to islands, plate tectonic collisions caused lands to rise up and it is still going on today. The Himalayan mountain range, where Mt. Everest is a part of, is one great example of two tectonic plates pushing against each other to create the peaks we see today. Mt. Everest is still growing at 2 millimeters per year. Major rivers that include the Indus and Ganges and the Yangtse are fed by the Himalayan mountains from both sides that provide water to China and India and several other countries.

The forces that build up a mountain are stored as potential energy in every drop of water on top and along the mountainside for every foot that it is  above sea level.  Water will always flow to the lowest level so it is the difference between where it is coming from to the lowest possible level it can go to that defines its potential energy. It is from that where a river converts it to kinetic energy as it surges downward. We see that energy in action in waterfalls, the rapids, and the devastation caused by floods.

The other amazing thing is that the river's kinetic energy can be stored  by damming it, thus effectively converting it to potential energy contained in a dam until water is released to run turbines to produce electricity via hydroelectric generators as in the Hoover Dam and the three Gorges Dam in China.

Rivers, history tells us, were instrumental in the development of early civilization. 

Mesopotamia, from Greek which means between two rivers - the Tigris and Euphrates - is known as the cradle of civilization. Everywhere we look around the globe human settlements grew at the mouth of rivers before emptying to the open sea or lakes. Note that from the left corner of the map below, we see another pivotal location in ancient history - the Nile Delta that is the area before the river empties into the Mediterranean.  The region called the Fertile Crescent is bound by the three rivers of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates.

Rivers are not just carriers of energy from the highest mountain peaks to the sea but the first conduit for mass transport of goods and people.  Even more important is that rivers actually move nutrients from the foot of mountains to the river banks. Early agriculture and human development flourished on the plains near and along rivers. Flooding is actually a river's chore as an annual clean up event at the same time  to replenish the nutrients along the river banks.  "The annual flooding of the Nile River dates back to ancient times when civilizations used its waters to nourish their crops. This flooding is of great importance to the livelihood and ecology of the region. It is known as the Nile flood and is an integral part of the historical legacy of Egypt and Sudan". The annual inundation is a celebrated event to this day.

The Parable of the River

It is the river from which we may extract moral and spiritual guideposts in our journey through our own personal river of life where indeed it is not where we end up but what we've accomplished along the way.

Anyone of us had the same potential energy at birth as in every droplet of water from the mountain top, allegorically speaking that is.  Our life's journey proceeds with the arrow of time that only goes  forward in the same way that the river flows only in one direction.  It is therefore what we do and how we navigate ourselves along the way that makes up the story of our lives. It is not  merely about striving to arrive at a destination but it is about how we spend every moment along the way.

Every river at its origin begins from tiny droplets that converge to make a thin rivulet. Rivulets converge to form narrow tributaries that soon join to make a stream.  Streams join up to make a river. That also describes our lives from the moment of conception, to our birth, growing up and making our way through life.

Both the river and each of our lives would  seem to be hostages of the arrow of time but time is also the enabler of growth and the facilitator of our journey. Time means we have to look forward and like the river there is no going back. Like the river we go through life rushing to grow up from childhood to the teenage years in a hurry to adulthood.  Along the way, we went through the rough rapids, then the calm serene flow of a widening river, then to rush again through the narrows  but that is how it is to be alive, to feel alive. Some of us may have gone through a waterfall - an illness, a breakup, a failed business - and survive it. The river continues. Along its way, the river carries with it nutrients from the soil above to be dropped off to the river banks. 

That is the parable of the river. We go on that journey from where ever it was we came from, from whenever it was, but in our journey we've affected others along the way as we had been affected by those ahead of us - parents, teachers, our elders, etc., but always mindful that the arrow of time only goes one way. We "drop off" what we can along the way - helping a friend, a neighbor, a loved one who had fallen on hard times and every ounce of kindness to the less fortunate among us, even to strangers - because, as with the river, it is not about reaching the open sea but what it does along the way.

And you know what, even the open sea or lake may not be the end for the river after all. Some of the water evaporates to become clouds that soon come down as rain over the mountains, some freeze to become snow caps. Then the droplets including those from the snow melt will begin the new season and thus  the cycle starts all over again. So even as much of the water remains at sea or lake, a good part of it goes up into the clouds and comes down again. That is the river's parable.

 

Net Worth

Net worth 

Noun:

".. the total wealth of an individual, company, or household, taking account of all financial assets and liabilities..."

Stripped of everything one owns, at that one moment, that final moment when all tangible assets no longer matter, defined by the expression, "you can't take it with you", how much is one really worth.  We can come up with at least one set of double meanings. We'll get into that.

First, we have this one clinical definition of net worth - efficient and unemotional, coldly detached - of the average human body.

Bill Bryson wrote in "The Body - A Guide For Occupants", his recollection while in high school in the 60s of what his biology teacher said the human body was worth based on the chemical elements that it was made from. His memory was hazy but he thought it was $13.50.  Perhaps, the teacher calculated that the human body is mostly water, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, about 99 % in all and the rest of other unknown (at that time) elements that can be had from the local hardware store. Skin, tissue and bones were worth $13.50 in 1960's dollars that are now worth about $140, due to inflation over all the past decades, which is about 3,682,280 VND (Vietnamese Dong) or 11,156 Russian Rubles.

But wait, the Royal Society of Chemistry in London, using only the purest form of elements, such as about 30 pounds of really pure carbon, and additional amounts hydrogen and oxygen (water being H2O), iron and rare elements of thorium, etc., puts the the value of the human body at "precisely $151,578.46 plus sales tax".

However, in a PBS 2012 broadcast of NOVA, a science program, the value of the elements to make an average human body was only $168.

It just goes to show how imprecise it can be to put values on anything. (Let me acknowledge Bill Bryson's incisive attempt at coming up with something based on inexact estimates).

Anyhow, that's about what the average human body is worth. Dare we mix financial net worth with that?  Just for grins, let's do that.  Let's pick on Ariana Grande.  She could tiptoe to 5'-1" and perhaps tip the scales at 100 pounds.  Financially, her net worth is estimated at $250 million plus several Guinness World records. However, her widely gossiped weight loss put her physical net worth at the bottom rung of the ladder, quite well below the average run-of-the-mill sumo wrestler at between 250 to 450 pounds. But then top ranked sumo wrestlers could only earn $100 grand annually, while most will barely get $30 K a year. Grand champions can earn more but they won't cover Ariana's jet flights and limo service alone between concerts and shows.

That's what I meant by a set of double meanings for net worth. Which is, "neither here nor there", some of you might say.

Let's segue to something else. You are reading this because your DNA, which is the most durable and enduring part of your existence, managed to survive countless and uninterrupted cell divisions over eons. Had there been just a single break, you would not be here.  Think about that. Before your parents met to conceive you also means that each of their parents had to have met to go through the same process as did all the generations earlier who started the "ball rolling", so to speak, that kept on rolling that hopefully is still rolling because you gave it another push through your own child or children.

DNA is not only a road map that leads backwards in time and towards the future, but it is also a blueprint for making generations of inheritors yet to come. 

This microscopic double helix strand of material is so plentiful in the average human body that if connected end-to-end into a single strand will extend to 10 billion miles, way past the orbit of Pluto, Bill Bryson wrote.

In a sense, there  should never be a question about your net worth, despite what your bank account says.

Let's talk about the other net worth. There are, for example, intangible net worth of a person's accomplishments and contributions for societies' benefit. What value should we put on Abraham Lincoln's and Martin Luther King's moral and social net worth?

What is the net worth of a physician who chose to practice in the poorest rural communities of Bangladesh, Bhutan, or the mountainous regions of Mindanao in the Philippines or Quitman or Tallahatchie in the Mississippi Delta in the wealthy USA? 

How do we compare the net worth of a Masai herder in Tanzania who owns a handful of cattle with  a Texas rancher?

 

We can't. And, should we? No.

In the end, it is really what net worth anyone has accumulated that he or she will be remembered for.  In other words, what intangible net worth we leave behind is what counts. Of course, both intangible and physical assets are governed by the same rule, "you can't take it with you". Or, can you? With intangibles, that is. Perhaps, there is that kind of non-material DNA that is also passed on from generation to generation with  a far wider and far longer reach than material goods. That, I suspect, is why civilization is able to transcend beyond moral inequities.  And so we must hope.

Hospital, Nurses, Doctors, Medicine

Hospital, nurses, doctors and medicine. Ordinarily we may say that it is a place where we would rather not be; and those are folks we'd prefer to know only socially; it is something we'd rather not take. But, there will come  a time when it is the place where we want to be, those are the people we want to tend to us, and yes it is something we willingly want to take into or apply to our bodies. 

Continuing on from the last musing in "Longevity Medicine?", this also takes us back to "Through The Eyes See You", (July 11, 2023 post).

But first, a little humor:

"A mechanic was removing a cylinder head from the motor of a car when he spotted a well-known cardiologist in his shop.

The cardiologist was there waiting for the service manager to come and take a look at his car when the mechanic shouted across the garage, “Hey doc, want to take a look at this?”

The cardiologist, a bit surprised, walked over to where the mechanic was working. The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked,

“So doc, look at this engine. I opened its heart, took the valves out, repaired or replaced anything damaged, and then put everything back in, and when I finished, it worked just like new. So how is it that I make $48,000 a year and you make $1.7 million when you and I are doing basically the same work?”

The cardiologist paused, leaned over and whispered to the mechanic…

“Try doing it with the engine running”.

It was in the early morning hours of Wednesday (before Thanksgiving) when I took my wife to the ER at the nearby hospital. She complained about severe pain on the left side of her  neck, just below the jaw line. Two days earlier, she was seen by a primary care doctor for the same pain. The doctor didn't really find anything wrong based on physically examining her neck. My wife's body temperature was not elevated to indicate an infection. Tylenol seemed to be the only appropriate medication.

She was fine until that Wednesday morning when the pain became unbearable. 

Again, there was little the medical staff were able to do for much of the early morning.  The ER doctor, in consultation with an off-site EENT doctor via phone, told us that my wife needed an MRI. All of these activities, of course, seem to be in slow motion that took up the rest of the morning. Then it was all about waiting for somebody somewhere to read the results, submit to the off-site EENT specialist, and wait for her recommendation.  As can be imagined it was all painstakingly glacial.

MRI indicated a mass of tissue right about where the pain was, between the base of her tonsils and part of the neck muscle.  It could be a tumor or some kind of an anomaly (hints of malignancy, reading between the lines). By late afternoon, it was decided that there was a pocket of infected tissue that needed to be drained. The procedure though not a full blown surgery was still going to be partly invasive and required the facilities and expertise of specialists at the  main hospital at the Texas Medical Center. This was almost a repeat scenario that I described in "Through The Eyes See You", just over two years ago.

It was nightfall by the time the ambulance transfer occurred.  I drove to the hospital shortly afterwards after a quick stop at our home to get her medication and other things she might need while confined. 

She was admitted to the ER (again). It was shortly after nine p.m. when I got there. Just about then two young EENT doctors came.  (Remember, this was the eve of Thanksgiving). Young as in almost fresh out of a four year college but first impressions vanished when they started talking and examining her.  Apparently, one was the senior doctor who was doing much of the talking.  They left momentarily, then came back with some science fiction apparatus consisting of a potable gizmo with a video screen and a thin flexible black "snake" (as best as I can describe it) with bright eyes at its "head". He explained that it was going to be uncomfortable as the other doctor inserted the snake into my wife's nostril.  As they were doing it, the lead doctor had his camera ready while instructing the other doctor where to go with the probe. He took a series of still pictures as the probe changed locations.  I watched the screen and as far as I can tell the probe was taking different views all around what I assumed was the tissue or growth in question.  My wife didn't complain about the discomfort.

At about that time the nurse came with a clipboard, pen and some documents for me to sign in preparation for the planned procedure. 

The senior doctor told the nurse to hold off on the documentation. He had sent the pictures to the head EENT who I assumed was off-site, probably at home (it was already 10 p.m.).  He told me that they will discuss it among themselves (meaning the doctors).  He was going to recommend against  the procedure to drain and they left.  Shortly after, they came back.  It was agreed that they go with massive antibiotics through IV which will be done upstairs where my wife was to be confined. 

I went home and came back the following morning. All through the night antibiotics flowed through her vein via the IV at 6-hour intervals. She was feeling better.  We spent Thanksgiving at the hospital.  But, you know what, nurses worked around the clock and doctors came by.  They too were spending their Thanksgiving there and at work.  I found out later that these doctors, nurses, and staff will have days off around Christmas Day. For these folks it was simply a choice between which holidays they'd be at work.

All throughout, the nurse assigned to my wife came and went at precise intervals, always bubbly in her demeanor and each time explaining what medications she was giving, including administering medicines through syringes into the IV to keep her body's chemical balances appropriately maintained on  potassium, sodium, insulin and glucose, etc. 

By Friday afternoon, the day after Thanksgiving, the nurse came with the release paperwork signed by the doctor (from somewhere in the hospital because we never did see her or him) and we headed for home. 

Hospital, Nurses, Doctors, Medicine.

Today, these are the modern-day dispensers of  miracles.  We are deeply grateful for  the services of all four, including all the hospital staff.  But we are particularly grateful for the petite young nurse, barely  five feet tall in her thick-soled sneakers, who came and went in and out of the hospital room with her cheerful spirits for the two days that my wife was confined.

 

It is our greatest wish for this Season that soon, that in the not so distant future, everyone, everywhere will have access to health care, modern health care that is.  And is it too frivolous to wishfully imagine for the wealth of rich nations to also flow towards the health of the inhabitants of the entire world?  Someday perhaps.