From a Cell's Perspective
TL;DR: This is a short creative work of analogy (under 2000 words) that attempts to provide some insight on important current events and especially the way forward. Paragraphs 14 and 15 are what you’re here for, but it will help to read what comes before that; it provides the necessary context for you to understand why 14 and 15 are so important.
[1] Through careful observation over the course of my life, I’ve come to learn of my place in things. I have been told I’m a thinker, which originally made me think I was one of the neurons responsible for guiding the whole system forward. I’m not part of the immune system for sure since I don’t practice violence. I don’t ship things so I’m not part of the circulatory system and I’m not much of a communicator, that function is already well served by the endocrine system. I’m not even a muscle cell, those who do manual work to move things along. I’ve come to learn that I’m probably just a skin cell, on the surface somewhere, serving to help sense the surroundings. It is perhaps a fitting duty for me, to be at the interface between this system of cells and the great beyond.
[2] I can’t fully comprehend where I am in the system exactly – every day I interact with just the few cells next to me and those from elsewhere that have circulated to my position. All other information is relayed to me from a distance. It is mostly through my neighbors, more distant acquaintances, and circulating messages that I have found out about my place in things.
[3] I mostly measure time by how many cells pass through the vessels just underneath where I live. There is so much activity throughout the system and all this activity, indeed everything that happens, requires energy. I know that there is a whole super-industrial complex involving the mouth cells and the gastrointestinal cells that turn food into energy and resources that make the whole system go. The energy and resources are needed to sustain the mission-critical lung and heart cells that keep the whole circulatory system going. I am not that mission-critical; in fact, millions of us die and fall off every day into the great beyond. But I’d venture to guess that if a great many of those like me were lost, that might be a big problem for keeping the system in regulation, just as might be the case if there were way too many of us.
[4] I’ve been long aware of the cells in the eye that first made some important observations. Through the circulating news that has reached me, I know the cluster has grown to include 99% of all the sensory cells in both eyes and that the observations are becoming even more frequent and urgent. The eye cells have worked for years with their connected sensory neurons to process their data, and those neurons have sent the results up the neuronal hierarchy to their manager neurons who have sent it to their manager neurons. The entire nervous system must have seen this information by now.
[5] All the energy and resources we use - it has never been a question where it comes from. Those neurons involved in decision-making direct the mouth and lung cells to bring in material that then all gets processed, manufactured, assembled, productized, commodified, and circulated throughout the system. All cells need a minimal amount to survive, but the messenger hormones have been telling us that we need more and more. My neighboring cells have been growing at record pace with all the energy and resources they have accumulated. I’ve tried sending out my own signals to try to regulate the hormones, but my signals don’t have the necessary reach. Or maybe it is the inhibitory neurons that are silencing the signal. Or maybe it is the case that no cell feels free enough to respond.
[6] In any case, the eye cells that dispatched the initial message have recently received corroboration from other sensory cells at not-so-distant portions of the system. The lungs have reported more CO2 in the air than before, which is to be expected from the record pace at which energy and resources are being moved through the system. There are more variable temperatures recorded recently over different parts of the system, breaking records seemingly every day and impairing the local circulation in many places. There’s also a bad virus going around right now that is keeping the immune system occupied. All this means that energy and resource distribution are not happening with the same reliability as they did before. These many disturbances are starting to catch up to all of us – there are simply too many problems arising in too many places.
[7] Yet, as the messaging that we all receive goes, it is imperative that we each continue to perform our everyday functions – that is our place in things, and it is not like we have a choice if we want to eat. The mission-critical heart cells can’t do much to improve things, they must get up and go to work every morning to keep the system going or else our entire system fails. The muscle cells operate under the direction of the neurons in exchange for the energy and resources delivered to them by the circulatory system.
[8] All cells are defined by converting energy and resources into growing something new that wasn’t there before and making sure the cycle continues so later generations of cells can do the same. However, this is the first time that a relatively small number of cells have managed to influence and co-opt major subsystems, using them to grow in ways that benefit only themselves. Their ideology continues to replicate, and with each successful division, the cells continue to capitalize on the energy and resources in their surroundings, drawing it to themselves for their growth at the expense of everything else.
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[9] The aberrant cells, for lack of a better term, certainly don’t recognize themselves as aberrant; some even believe they are helping the system achieve a better state of being than it has ever achieved before. Through their messaging, they influence the behavior of other cells both near and far, causing them to believe they are benign. The immune cells, convinced of the messaging, do not recognize these aberrant cells as a threat, and thus they are free to conduct their activities as they please.
[10] I think the potential is there for all such cells to become just as aberrant. Maybe aberrant skin cells could also be a thing in some other place or time. All I know is that the system has been in balance for most of its history because we cells have been able to regulate both ourselves and each other. Uncontrolled growth by a few has never been a thing before, and thus we haven’t been prepared for it.
[11] Every day, this one skin cell wakes up to the same reality, that our system is not doing as well as it did before and appears to be growing worse. Thankfully, as more and more cells report disturbances from all over, messages of all kinds are finally getting heard. There are now many cells that seek to improve the system. One example is the growing number of cells trying to remove the excess CO2 from the circulation.
[12] All cells put out CO2 because of their daily activities, but its recycling used to be complete and balanced, so it never accumulated in significant quantities. Now, more attention is being given to its removal and not enough attention to reducing its input, although the latter is necessary for the survival of our system. It is not possible to remove all the CO2 we need to remove; thus, we must halt emissions as quickly as possible to a level where it will once again be balanced. Yet there is still the question of these large masses of cells throughout the system who want nothing else but to continue to grow, at an accelerated pace, at the expense of all other cells.
[13] I am not alone in worrying about all the disturbances, impacts to the circulation, disruptions in communication, and delays in receiving energy and resources. I am just a skin cell, but like all cells we rely on each other and the rest of the system for our individual survival. Some cells are rather self-sufficient and have symbiotic organelles that produce food and renewable energy, but I believe even those cells may even be impacted if the system ultimately suffers some critical subsystem failure.
[14] Like the millions of other skin cells this very day, I too will eventually die and fall off into the great beyond. I wonder if during my brief lifetime I might see this system restored to health. I have heard from a few neurons that have spoken with the ear neurons about something I can only comprehend in the vaguest manner, something called “chemotherapy” but there are complications to that approach. As alternatives, here are my ideas:
[15] This is not an exhaustive list – there will be alternatives that other cells might come up with in the days to come. But this is a start, a guide on how to restore the system to health. It will require changes to how we do things, since what we are doing now is not preventing the growth of the aberrant cells, only fueling it. For example, to achieve the last of these alternatives, we may very well need to make changes to our metabolism – the company we keep, the work we do, the business we do with our neighbors and acquaintances, and especially our entire supply chain.
[16] To conclude, our system has entered new territory and its evolution is far from over. From all I have been able to perceive from my limited perspective as part of this system, I know we are all inside a structure floating in relative emptiness. The eye cells tell us there are other structures out there, in fact, there are billions of other structures that are likely complete with their own cells. Do they all eventually have problems with aberrant cells as well? Who knows? All I know is that we are all just specks in a system of billions of systems, all on a grand ride that I hope we can continue.