Biology provides abundant clues about deep subjects. The Standard Model of Physics has held up successfully for over 50 years. Experiments continue to prove the predictions of the model (e.g., the Higgs Boson). There is no Standard Model of Biology. We might have scratched the surface. Our predictive ability is limited. In grad school we used to joke that under the strictest conditions of medium, temperature, and light we could engineer, a microorganism will do exactly as it pleases.
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Nearly every cell in a caterpillar’s body is transformed into something else to become a butterfly. There is no clean intermediate form. Inside that chrysalis there are two creatures in transition, enmeshed in the same confined space, covered in change goo – not pretty.
When you are leading your organization to become something else, expect a long change goo-covered transition. You’ll have remnants of the old and hints of the new wrestling for resources and attention. People will be frustrated. Some resist the change and want to “go back” or “stay the same,” and others will be irritated at the slow progress to the future.
This level of change is difficult. Expect it to go slowly and messily. Help your organization grapple with the reality and required duration.
This same logic holds for changing yourself. Part of you will long to “go back.” The transition is goopy.
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Memory and recall are central to our lives. Much of the fun with extended family is recalling events from our shared past. “Remember when Grandpop split his shorts while waterskiing on Assawoman Bay?” And we all laugh.
We generally believe that memories are stored in the pattern of connections between our neurons. This is partly why technophiles believe they can upload their knowledge, experiences, and consciousness into a digital system – memories might be “just data” and consciousness might automatically arise from a massive amount of organized data. (Count me Captain Skeptical here. No one has been able to define consciousness in a way that an engineer could create it.)
One line of evidence that suggests memories might be more than neuron connections comes from research on caterpillars and moths. Caterpillars who were trained to avoid a nasty chemical turn into moths who already know to avoid that same chemical. Their nervous systems are different, but the memory persists. https://theconversation.com/despite-metamorphosis-moths-hold-on-to-memories-from-their-days-as-a-caterpillar-29859
Your brain is replacing aging neurons while you sleep. Those memories from the kindergarten playground might well have been formed on neurons that were replaced many times.
Another observation: What we choose to focus upon, and whom with which we choose to associate has a tremendous influence on what memories are both created and reinforced.
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Fetal microchimerism has only recently been recognized as a common phenomenon.
Few people know that when a mother is pregnant, some of her cells pass through the placenta and become part of the baby. And some of the baby’s unique cells pass through the placenta and become a permanent part of the mother. Mother and baby are co-created. A study of the brains of elderly women found a significant number of cells carrying Y-chromosomes, which came from their sons in utero, many decades earlier.
Scientists call this fetal microchimerism after the Greek legend of the Chimera, a hybrid creature with parts of a goat, a lion, and a serpent.
Fetal microchimerism goes beyond the mother and baby.
If you have older siblings from the same mother you might be carrying some of their cells, passed to you from your mother to you via the placenta. There are younger sisters carrying their older brother’s Y-chromosome in some cells. It’s possible that you are carrying some of your grandmother’s cells, passed to your mother, and then to you.
Individual humans have unique DNA and cells, but also carry some ancestral cells. This speaks to us in some mysterious way about the power of family, and the absurdity of a stand-alone self-made individual.
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Deep people are an artistic mix of toughness and tenderness.
Your fingertips are incredibly sensitive. You can detect subtle changes in a surface. You can caress a child’s face to comfort them. Yet your fingers are powerful – squeezing, pressing, and when trained, breaking boards.
By contrast your eye is incredibly sensitive to light but cannot stand even a little pressure.
Deep people must be more like fingers than eyeballs. One of the flaws in our current cultural trend is that we’re celebrating thin-skinned, easily offended eyeballs.
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We live amidst many ant colonies. I was surprised to learn that individual ants have about 250,000 brain neurons, the most of any known insect. This is likely necessary for their complex social and adaptive behaviors. Ants are incredibly strong for their size. Ants can support 5,000x their body weight thanks to their light body, large neck muscles, and durable exoskeleton. Were I an ant with that strength I could carry over a million pounds. Biologists estimate that the total weight of ants is about the same total weight of the human population on planet Earth. Ants have elaborate pheromone systems for communicating with one another — like us, their collective intellect and understanding is external to the individual.
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I can see a half-dozen live oaks outside the window where I do most of my writing. Trees arrange their branches and leaves to capture sunlight. Some trees, like elms, fill their spaces with symmetrical and elegantly curved branches. Live oaks are different. Live oaks fill up the 3D space with bizarre twists and turns, odd angles, almost frantic bends. I’m used to trees which shed their leaves in the Fall. Live oaks shed their old leaves in the Spring. Live oaks are good reminders that there is more than one “conventional” way a life fulfills its calling.
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Something that deep people recognize — and embrace — is the need to faithfully flourish at every life stage. Biological aging means that excellence and flourishing for a newly married 25-year-old are different than a parent launching their children into independent adulthood or an 85-year-old transitioning into assisted care. Principles remain. How those principles are lived in context of shifting responsibilities and opportunities must change. Some practices should not change. The need (and therefore, the command) for Sabbath rest is for everyone. Serving others is for everyone. I knew a bed-ridden woman who embraced her labor of interceding for people. Proper worship is incumbent on all of us, individually and collectively. My conviction is that we never stop learning and working towards mastery using the gifts we’ve been given. Our obligations to be stewards of Creation, community, and family remain.
