Day 49

Today, I am grateful for ...

The miracle that is the human body.

"Through the Wormhole," a show hosted by Morgan Freeman on the Science Channel, discusses different ways of looking at things, as shown or being researched by science. One of the episodes was about time travel, another was about alternate dimensions, and the more recent one was about other senses that the human person may posses (such as how, if you close your eyes, and you're sober, you can touch your finger to your nose - a spatial sense in relation to yourself).

They did an experiment with people who, as the result of a stroke or something similar, lost sight in one eye. They had the subject sit with their face in front of a partition, so that each eye could not see what was on the other side. To the seeing eye, they showed pictures of people with the faces blocked. To the blind eye, they showed pictures of faces with exaggerated expressions. They attached these probes to the subject's face to track any slight muscular movement. The results showed that the person imitated the expressions being shown to the blind eye every single time.

After doing an MRI to track the activity in the brain while this was happening, they found that facial recognition is actually registered and understood by eight different parts of the brain as opposed to the visual cortex that sight utilizes.

I am grateful for the fact that the body works. I am grateful for the brain and its complexities and how it controls everything that I do. I am grateful for the fact that we barely understand the powerhouse for who we are and what comprises us. I am grateful for the mere science of life - a sperm and an egg come together to create what will be a person. A person who can grow up to be the best or the worst. A person who can grow up to be the second coming of Christ or the second coming of Hitler. I am grateful for the body's way of simply being, existing, living. It repairs itself, maintains itself, adapts itself - all of the time, whether I realize it or not. I am grateful for the humility that comes with all of these realizations. I am grateful for the understanding that I am not in control, nor have I ever been. I am grateful for my own brain which populates all of these thoughts, even if I wish it would calm down sometimes.

I am grateful for life.