I Am …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 standing 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 numbed out of your gourd 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 scattered molecular 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 jigsaw puzzle waiting for assembly. And now — son-of-a-gun, here we are. From two microscopic half-cells merged 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 latched onto the lining of Mom’s womb! Let’s take a quick inventory 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, squat, jump, reach, grasp, point, scratch, eat, push, pull, lift, swim, lie down and perform any other maneuver or contortion 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 maneuvered by our tendons, ligaments and muscles. The assemblies of interconnected, expandable, contractible, cells that work harmoniously 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 nutrients 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 assorted 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, arteries, capillaries, veins — transport nourishment, oxygen, and an assortment of other chemicals and substances (hormones, biological warriors, 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 stimuli 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 to all of this, our systems and sub-systems for gathering 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 freckles, 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! ……你是，他是，她是，他們是……但是你已經知道了，對吧？或者你目前已經不再思考這個問題了——或者是從來都沒想過這事？ 我想我們需要對此澄清一下，因此……來做這個，觸摸下你自己，對，向前，觸摸下你自己。 這樣做，你感覺到了什麼？皮膚？當然。或許還可能是一些汗毛？好。溫度如何？當然，除非在一月你赤身裸體地站在你明尼蘇達的後院裏。你確實該儘快回去——並少喝點烈性酒…… 除非你頭腦麻木或者一點都不關心，你只感覺到你自己！因此那又有什麼特別的呢？你是活着的！忠於良知，纔是真正意義上的活着。考慮一下吧。千萬年後你就早已經離開人世，也就不存在了。你只不過是散落在宇宙中的一個分子大小的星際塵埃罷了。你或許本是你所能想到的一小部分而已，橡樹，沙灘，羽毛，應有盡有。（別考慮太多，如果你考慮它的話，它會變得非常快的。） 一開始，我們就是生物學上的拼版玩具，期待着組裝完整。可現在，我們卻站在了這兒。洶涌的激情把兩個半細胞結合在一起，這真是遺傳的奇蹟。之後它又把單細胞變成了千千萬萬個由多細胞組成，複雜的生物。 那不是什麼大事對吧？每天都在發生。 哦，對了，現在，它可一件非常大的事了，每天都發生成千上萬次。而且錯誤的機率非常小。按一般的標準，我們的鼻子、眼睛、耳朵在腦袋上長得非常恰當。胳膊、腿、手指和腳指頭的個數也不多不少。內腔器官位置功能正常。這些都是源自母親子宮內的微小細胞。 我們來快速研究下我們。 我們都有一個獨立、柔韌，緊密的結構，這個結構是構架我們的基礎。人體共有200多塊骨頭，全部骨塊都連接、鏈接在一起，因此，我們能走路、說話、直立、坐、跑、彎曲、彎腰、蹲、跳、伸手、握、點、抓、吃、推、拉、舉、游泳、躺下或做任何你所能想到的一切動作和扭曲動作。酷吧，呵？當然除此之外，這個結構也有利於保護我們的內部器官，大腦、肺、心臟和消化系統——免受外部過大力量的損壞。 所有這些骨塊都非常堅固，他們由腱、韌帶和肌肉連接控制。組織連接在一起，可伸縮，各部分如執行命令似的運作協調，這樣我們可以完成我們想要做的所有事情。 想一下！事實上我們的身體是一個堅固的支撐結構，因此，我們能夠支配它，動作絕妙自如實在令人驚異。 我們身體的基本成分——細胞——都是獨立存在的，負責他們所在器官分配的工作。它們靠一點蛋白質和糖分存活，糖由氧氣和用來繁殖的營養物質生成。 消化系統吸收食物這些原生物（有時是各種垃圾），細胞把食物加工成廢物，然後通過內部的輸送系統把它排出來。這些確實沒用的東西就被堆在外面。 循環系統——心臟、動脈、毛細血管、靜脈——可以把營養物質、氧氣和一些化學成分和物質（激素、微生物、廢棄物和一些有時侵入的臭蟲輸送到身體的各個部分，也可以把他們運送出來。 呼吸系統——肺、以及相聯的各個通道——從空氣中吸入氧氣，通過循環系統把他們輸送到血液裏，把二氧化碳（細胞的副產品）從血液裏呼吸出去，排放到空氣。 神經系統接受或感受外面來自光、聲、氣味、味道的刺激，一般情況下，神經系統就把他們變成綜合信息，可以把這些信息立即反映出來，可以把他們儲存起來以備後用。同時，他使內部的運作相當高效。 除此之外，系統和子系統一起收集來自外面眼、耳、鼻等部位的刺激，抵禦疾病，癒合傷口、保持體溫衡定、維持化學成分的平衡，生長毛髮，產生雀斑，排放腸氣，以及再生等等。我們突然明白我們原來是一個非常複雜的生物體。 哎呀，天那！我們是地球上最爲複雜的零件組裝品！事實上，我們非常複雜，複雜到經過這些年研究身體是是如何工作的之後，我們現在仍是一無所知！或許，我們永遠不會明白。那誰明白呢？ 我們——你們和我——都有生命！我們運行着整個人類動物所運行的那個身體。如果那不使人感到吃驚的話，我真不知道身體是什麼！-
