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…You are, he is, she is, they are… But you knew that already, didn’t you? Or have you really stopped to think about it recently — or ever for that matter?
Huh? I guess we need a little clarification on this. So…do this. Touch yourself. That’s right, go ahead and touch yourself.
So, what did you feel? Skin? Of course. Maybe some hair? OK. How about warmth? Sure, unless you’re standing1 naked in your back yard in Minnesota in the middle of January. (You really need to get back inside as quickly as possible — and try to cut back on the quantity of hot toddies…
Unless you’re numbed2 out of your gourd3 or weren’t really paying attention, you felt YOU! So what’s so special about that? YOU’RE ALIVE! Honest-to-goodness, really alive! Think about it. For about a zillion years you weren’t — alive that is. You did not exist. You were only scattered4 molecular5 stardust. You could have been a little part of just about anything you can think of — oak tree, beach, chicken feathers — you name it. (Don’t dwell too long on this thought. It can get pretty gross real quick if you let it.)
From the beginning of time, we have been nothing more than a potential biological jigsaw6 puzzle waiting for assembly. And now — son-of-a-gun, here we are. From two microscopic7 half-cells merged8 in a surge of passion, the miracle of genetics has transformed that single cell into a zillion-celled, complex, functioning animal organism.
Tain’t no big deal, you say? It happens every day?
Oh, c’mon, now. It is a mega-deal that happens thousands and thousands of times a day. And — it happens with a terrifically small percentage of errors. As a general rule, our noses, eyes and ears wind up in pretty much the right place on our heads. We have the correct numbers of arms, legs, fingers and toes. And our innards are all positioned normally and function as they were intended. All this from microscopic cell latched9 onto the lining10 of Mom’s womb!
Let’s take a quick inventory11 of “us”.
We all have a really cool, flexible, articulating framework as a foundation for the rest of the stuff we’re made of. Over 200 bones, all connected together and hinged so we can walk, talk, stand, sit, run, bend, stoop, squat12, jump, reach, grasp, point, scratch, eat, push, pull, lift, swim, lie down and perform any other maneuver13 or contortion14 you can think of. Cool, huh? In addition of course, some of this framework also does a great job of protecting our insides — brain, lungs, heart, and digestive system — from damage from excessive outside forces.
All of these fairly solid hunks of material are connected and maneuvered15 by our tendons, ligaments and muscles. The assemblies of interconnected, expandable, contractible, cells that work harmoniously16 as directed to allow us to accomplish all of the things we’ve already mentioned.
Think about it! Just the fact that we have a solid supporting framework that we can manipulate and move pretty much as we desire is amazing in and of itself!
Our basic building blocks — our cells — are all individually， live little bits of protein and goo that use the oxygen and nutrients17 they are supplied to multiply and， do the jobs required of the organ that they are a part of.
Our digestive system takes the raw materials we provide it in the way of food (and occasionally assorted18 garbage), processes it into a form usable by the cells and ships it out through our internal distribution system. The unusable excess is dumped (excuse the term) externally.
Our circulatory system — heart, arteries19, capillaries20, veins21 — transport nourishment22, oxygen, and an assortment23 of other chemicals and substances (hormones, biological warriors24, waste materials and occasional invading buggies) to and from all of our body parts (individual cells).
Our respiratory system — lungs and associated passageways — snags the oxygen from the air, passes it along to the transporters in our bloodstream, drags the carbon dioxide (one of the byproducts of cell life) back out of the blood and expels it out into the air.
Our nervous system receives outside stimuli25 from sights, sounds, smells, tastes and “feels”, translates it into generally comprehensible information and either uses it immediately to produce a response or stores it for future reference. At the same time, it keeps all of our internal processes functioning in a fairly efficient manner.Add to all of this, our systems and sub-systems for gathering26 the outside stimuli in the first place (eyes, ears, nose, etc.), fighting off disease, healing injuries, maintaining body temperature, maintaining chemical balance, growing hair, producing freckles27, passing gas, reproducing, etc. and suddenly we are introduced to ourselves as an extremely complex biological organism!
Holy Smokes, folks! We are one of the most complicated assemblies of parts and pieces on the face of this earth! We are so complicated in fact, that even after studying our body parts for all these years to try to figure out exactly how all our stuff works, we still don’t know everything! Maybe we never will. Who knows?
Are you tracking with me here? We — you and I — are ALIVE! We’re functioning and doing all the stuff that we human-type animals do. If that’s not absolutely mind-boggling, I don’t know what is!
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……你是，他是，她是，他们是……但是你已经知道了，对吧？或者你目前已经不再思考这个问题了——或者是从来都没想过这事？
我想我们需要对此澄清一下，因此……来做这个，触摸下你自己，对，向前，触摸下你自己。
这样做，你感觉到了什么？皮肤？当然。或许还可能是一些汗毛？好。温度如何？当然，除非在一月你赤身裸体地站在你明尼苏达的后院里。你确实该尽快回去——并少喝点烈性酒……
除非你头脑麻木或者一点都不关心，你只感觉到你自己！因此那又有什么特别的呢？你是活着的！忠于良知，才是真正意义上的活着。考虑一下吧。千万年后你就早已经离开人世，也就不存在了。你只不过是散落在宇宙中的一个分子大小的星际尘埃罢了。你或许本是你所能想到的一小部分而已，橡树，沙滩，羽毛，应有尽有。（别考虑太多，如果你考虑它的话，它会变得非常快的。）
一开始，我们就是生物学上的拼版玩具，期待着组装完整。可现在，我们却站在了这儿。汹涌的激情把两个半细胞结合在一起，这真是遗传的奇迹。之后它又把单细胞变成了千千万万个由多细胞组成，复杂的生物。
那不是什么大事对吧？每天都在发生。
哦，对了，现在，它可一件非常大的事了，每天都发生成千上万次。而且错误的几率非常小。按一般的标准，我们的鼻子、眼睛、耳朵在脑袋上长得非常恰当。胳膊、腿、手指和脚指头的个数也不多不少。内腔器官位置功能正常。这些都是源自母亲子宫内的微小细胞。
我们来快速研究下我们。
我们都有一个独立、柔韧，紧密的结构，这个结构是构架我们的基础。人体共有200多块骨头，全部骨块都连接、链接在一起，因此，我们能走路、说话、直立、坐、跑、弯曲、弯腰、蹲、跳、伸手、握、点、抓、吃、推、拉、举、游泳、躺下或做任何你所能想到的一切动作和扭曲动作。酷吧，呵？当然除此之外，这个结构也有利于保护我们的内部器官，大脑、肺、心脏和消化系统——免受外部过大力量的损坏。
所有这些骨块都非常坚固，他们由腱、韧带和肌肉连接控制。组织连接在一起，可伸缩，各部分如执行命令似的运作协调，这样我们可以完成我们想要做的所有事情。
想一下！事实上我们的身体是一个坚固的支撑结构，因此，我们能够支配它，动作绝妙自如实在令人惊异。
我们身体的基本成分——细胞——都是独立存在的，负责他们所在器官分配的工作。它们靠一点蛋白质和糖分存活，糖由氧气和用来繁殖的营养物质生成。
消化系统吸收食物这些原生物（有时是各种垃圾），细胞把食物加工成废物，然后通过内部的输送系统把它排出来。这些确实没用的东西就被堆在外面。
循环系统——心脏、动脉、毛细血管、静脉——可以把营养物质、氧气和一些化学成分和物质（激素、微生物、废弃物和一些有时侵入的臭虫输送到身体的各个部分，也可以把他们运送出来。
呼吸系统——肺、以及相联的各个通道——从空气中吸入氧气，通过循环系统把他们输送到血液里，把二氧化碳（细胞的副产品）从血液里呼吸出去，排放到空气。
神经系统接受或感受外面来自光、声、气味、味道的刺激，一般情况下，神经系统就把他们变成综合信息，可以把这些信息立即反映出来，可以把他们储存起来以备后用。同时，他使内部的运作相当高效。
除此之外，系统和子系统一起收集来自外面眼、耳、鼻等部位的刺激，抵御疾病，愈合伤口、保持体温衡定、维持化学成分的平衡，生长毛发，产生雀斑，排放肠气，以及再生等等。我们突然明白我们原来是一个非常复杂的生物体。
哎呀，天那！我们是地球上最为复杂的零件组装品！事实上，我们非常复杂，复杂到经过这些年研究身体是是如何工作的之后，我们现在仍是一无所知！或许，我们永远不会明白。那谁明白呢？
我们——你们和我——都有生命！我们运行着整个人类动物所运行的那个身体。如果那不使人感到吃惊的话，我真不知道身体是什么！
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