Early this morn, having humbly observed a 16 hour fast, I found myself lying horizontal on a narrow, hard bed, shirt off, light low, stomach covered in a warm aqua-green goo, with an Asian woman's hand pressing a cool, sleek gizmo gently into my sternum. The ultrasound technology was amazing - the same stuff used to gaze into the confines of a womb or pinpoint the location of a tumor. There on the screen right next to my face was a fuzzy pulsing, beating pair of hands, clapping rather violently together in a rhythmic collision of aortic valve parts.
They call it an "echocardiogram." An echo of my heart. I had never come face to face with such technology before, truth be told, especially not when aimed at my own innards. The technician gently slid the gadget around atop the gelatinous goo, changing the angle to get a different view of my heart. At the same time she was speedily scanning through varying menus of complex numbers and color schemes which were laid atop the display; one view looked like that from the wolf creatures' perspective in the classic horror flick, Wolfen (starring the always awesome Albert Finney - 1981 - if you've never seen it) . What struck me as the hand gently moved around my chest and stomach, politely seeking new angles of view, was how easy it was to peer into our own bodies and expose the most basic physical constructions. And also just how amazing the human body is.
Right there on the screen was THE central physical mechanism that allows me to live, to breathe, to act, to think; and all I could think of still was that pair of clapping hands, perhaps drawn by a graphic artist channeling the darkened dreamscape vision of Van Gough and the vibrant, jerky-genius animation methods from the "Waking Life" film. And no matter how intricate and miniaturized and bio-engineered we made our own engineering feats, they would never match the simple, sublime togetherness of nature's evolutionary creations. Chaos harnessed, inextricably meshed, into the sparks of life itself.
Whew - just read what I wrote above - getting a bit too out-there-metaphysical-like, huh?! But anyways, from some perspectives (not the fun ones!), just a boring visit to a hospital for a routine medical procedure. From a different perspective - which I choose to embrace whenever I can - another close encounter with the endless wonders in every swirling atom stirring around us. And in a way, I suppose, that's what being a thinking social creature is - having and enjoying your own unique perspective on life...
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