Joyas Voladras

Our hearts are probably our most important muscle/organ. They're only about the size of a fist but they pump blood through our bodies 24/7, 365 days of every year only ever stopping when we die. That's a lot of work. In the essay Joyas Voladras we learn about many hearts including the engine of a heart trapped inside the hummingbird. The hummingbird is a magnificent creature. Their hearts beat 10 times a second (while normal human hearts beat a mere 1-3 per second). Not only does the hummingbirds heart beat almost 10 times faster than ours but "a hummingbird's heart is only the size of a pencil eraser." With a heart like that it's no surprise that hummingbird's don't live to be a 100 years old. Hummingbirds live a fast ambitious life and "The price of their ambition is a life closer to death." It is said that "Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. You can spend them slowly, like a tortoise, and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird, and live to be two years old." This was one of my favorite quotes in the essay because it makes you think. I believe that Brian Doyle was trying to get the readers to think about is how they spend their 2 billion beats. The tortoise and the hummingbird are obviously two different extremes and I don't think that we are meant to be like either one. We as humans are given the happy medium in this situation. Although we don't live to be as old as a tortoise we are given more time than just 2 lousy years. Hummingbirds may live a fast life but it's a bit of a meaningless life. When reading and re-reading this quote I initially thought of a video we saw last week in class. In the video, Neil Pasricha discusses his 3 A's of Awesome: Attitude, Awareness, and Authenticity. Basically, he talks about how it's important that we live the little time we have here on Earth with a positive attitude, that we are aware of all the awesome things, especially during dark times, and that more importantly we have authenticity, and no matter what we stay true to ourselves. I believe Brian left us with a similar message. He gets you thinking about those 2 billion heart beats. In the last paragraph of his essay, Doyle talks about how "all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall. You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can “but even though we are torn, and even though we build walls we can't stop being aware of things good or bad. Our walls topple " in an instant, felled by a woman's second glance, a child's apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother's papery ancient hand in a thicket of your hair, the memory of your father's voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children." With this in mind, the answer to our question “What does it mean to be human " becomes clear; we are not humans because we have hearts and organs, we are human because of how we live. "So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment." As humans we are aware of many things. We know when to build our walls up, we remember the pain but at the same time we remember the good. We can't help being aware, and we can't help that our walls fall down. We are curious beings with the need to share with others. We have empathy. All these qualities effect how we live, and all these qualities are what make us human.

What does it mean to be human?

I believe that every person is a human. We all have skin and organs and ears and arms and legs, etc. And although some people are missing a few pieces we are still the same. We all have a heart beat and a brain even though some work better than others.  We all eat, drink and sleep to survive. Humans are people who are created by a mother and father. The main factor, I believe, that makes us human is that we have consciousness. Humans are aware of their surroundings and their actions, they know right from wrong, they experience life, and they can communicate with one another.

My Second Google 20% Project

For my second Google 20% project I plan on working around the topic of travel. I've always been mesmerized by the world’s beauty (well maybe not always I’m pretty sure as a child all I wanted was food and toys). I plan on finding and researching some the most remarkable places on Earth there is to visit. An obstacle I know I will face from the start is the three places I want to research. I know I could go the easy way and say places like London and Fiji but I've been thinking a lot about risks. When asked to pick a topic for this Google 20% project, we were told to take risks. I’m not quite sure how to make this risky but for now all I know is that I want to find hidden places, the kind of places that don’t show up on your world travel calendar. I want to make this project great and different. I’m just not so sure on how to do that yet.

Terri Schiavo Case Study Conclusion

For information on background, legal cases, etc. about Terri Schaivo click here.

To wrap-up our bioethics unit, we've been given the question: Do you believe that the decision to disconnect Terri Schiavo from life-support was justified? 

I had to think about this question a lot and I've changed my mind a few times. There's a lot to consider when having to decide on whether someone lives or not. If I were asked this question say last week, I probably would have answered straight away, NO. I believed, at the time, that Terri had just as much of a right to live as I did, and I still do, but I don't think it was completely wrong for them to pull the plug. There are many articles out there on this case where you can find information on how active Terri was all those years. (look here) At one point in time she was doing okay, she could react, open her eyes, and she still had a personality(check out this article by Attorney Barbara Weller). Because of this, I believed that Terri should stay on life-support. I thought through the perspective of "she could still get better." But, the truth is that Terri was said to be in a persistent vegetative state(PVS) and she would most likely not improve. I had to take a step back from my initial beliefs and look at the big picture. I thought of all the people that were being negatively effected by Terri staying alive. A lot of people, especially her family, were suffering. So, yes, I believe it was justified to pull the plug on Terri Schiavo. It had been 15 years and she hadn't had any major break-troughs. Terri herself probably wasn't all that happy either. Of course she had her family but her family had lives too, they had things to do and couldn't be with her 24/7. So Terri for the majority of the day was stuck in a hospitable bed with nothing to do but look forward to a possible visit from her parents. I think it was best for everyone that Terri be disconnected from life-support. My only wish would have been to do it in a more humane way. For 14 days Terri starved to death. That could have clearly been avoided.

QUALITY OF LIFE: What is in Terri Schiavo’s best interest? Is her life still worth living? What makes life meaningful?

I thought a lot about these specific questions when making my final decision. I believe it was in Terri's best interest to disconnect the life support. Life is always worth living, there is always hope and love and good things to look forward to in any kind of situation. But in Terri's case, there's no much hope left. Life is worth living if you can make it meaningful. There wasn't much Terri could do and its painful to think she was stuck in a tiny room  in her bed for so long. Yes, it was good that they tried therapy but they didn't accomplish anything. She was still in the same state. After 15 years of agonizing boredom  it seems almost just as inhumane to have kept her alive as it was to let her starve to death for 14 days  Terri didn't have much of a life for those 15 years. She was more stuck in a moment than alive. And she wouldn't have been able to escape that moment. Everyday was pretty much the same. The routine soon became meaningless. I believe what makes life meaningful is the ability to live it. To be able to do what you want and to think on your own. To be able to express yourself and accept the ways others express themselves too. IN this case, Terri would have been able to do much with her life but sleep and eat and even to do that she needed help. Overall, it was in her best interest to be disconnected from life support because there wasn't much of her life left to be worth living for. She wasn't able to make her life meaningful and if you can bring meaning into your life, then what is there for you to do?

The DNA Dilemma: A Test That Could Change Your Life

"The problem with genome sequencing is that everyone could have incidental findings."

Recently in class we read the Time's article "The DNA Dilemma: A Test That Could Change Your Life."  It's very interesting to read articles like these and to hear about new technologies. Most people probably don't know about genome sequencing and how much we can tell from  them. In case your one of those people, genome sequencing gives doctors the ability to read your genes and see "down to every last typo on a chromosome". The article describes the procedure as : "...lab technicians need less than a teaspoon of blood, which is chemically treated to burst open the cells so the DNA inside them can be collected. Those microscopic strands are then fed into sophisticated machines that read each of the 3 million bits of information, called base pairs, that make up a persons genetic alphabet. Computers scan the data for the equivalent of spelling mistakes. Some mistakes cause disease; others don't."  Along with the technology to discover these things comes the tricky questions like : Should doctors tell patients everything they learn, even about the risk of diseases for which there are not yet cures? and Should parents tell their children what might await them as adults?
The article brings up the results of a study where parents were asked if they would want to know everything that's wrong with their child and shockingly, "nearly all the parents said they would want to know about every disease risk, even if there's no treatment available." Unlike the parents, the group of bioethicists, lab directors, geneticists,  pediatricians and genetic counselors felt the opposite. The majority of them believed only results that could be immediately acted on should be shared with families; personally, I would have to agree. If I was a doctor, I wouldn't tell my patient or the parents anything that doesn't affect them now. Part of my beliefs is that I believe in living in the present and worrying about what matters now. The future is a big issue in genome sequencing. Its the doctors actions of whether to tell or not that affect the child's future. For example, the results could show that a child has the possibility of getting a disease as an adult. Most people right away would want to know what disease it is, but its only a possibility. The disease hasn't formed yet and they don't know for sure that it will. Accidental findings like things aren't 100% correct. Tom Murray has an interesting opinion on this, he said : "Great, we can sequence the genome of a fetus. What the hell does it tell us? Much less than most people probably believe. Probabilities are not the same as guarantees." I wouldn't want to know about anything I might get in the future and even as a parent I wouldn't want to know if it was my child. The times article features a story about a woman named Laurie Hunter who had her children sequenced. She talks about waiting for the results of her own genome sequencing when she says "Sometimes what you don't know is easier. I feel completely overwhelmed with information. Now it just feels like a waiting game." The problem with finding out everything is that once you know there's not much you can do, not every disease has clear instructions on how to prevent it. People argue that knowing is overall beneficial because later in life there may be a cure to the disease but you have to keep in mind that things change. The typo may not affect you/your child after all, anything could happen, and if you're told you might loose all your memory at age 50 you'll live your whole life with that in the back of your mind. Imagine telling a child they could develop cancer as a young adult, that child will have that weighing them down. 
In conclusion, we may have more technology than what is good for us. Its great that you could stop a child from getting diabetes but there's always uncharted territory " and patients entering this territory with imperfect maps need to reckon with the odds of getting lost."

Reflections and Resolution 2012

Reflect: I hadn't really thought about the past year and resolutions when New Year's came around. I guess I'm not huge on the thought of having to write 13 instead of 12 on all my papers(that's going to take some getting used to). I started to think back to the beginning of 2012, and it crossed my mind that the year started way before the first day of high school(which for me is my own personal New Years). I realized the start of 2012 was when I was halfway through 8th grade. It seems like ages since I've walked those halls and attended Rogate. Since then, I supposed I've learned more about myself. I've discovered that I'm a huge procrastinator and that I spent (still do) too much time on the computer rather than outside. I also have seen a change in what I like. For instance, for a good chunk of the last half of 2012 I began to get into books again. I've made some new friends, lost some old. Most importantly, I've started to look at the world through different perspectives. Realizing there's more to life than just the small town of Mansfield. I've spent hours thinking about my future and others and the little things in life that make it so much better. Right now your reading my post but somewhere across the world, great things are happening. I've learned this year that bad things happen(obviously) but we should always focus on the good. Like I may be regretting procrastinating right now because its like 10:30 and I still have tons of homework to do but somewhere out there a newborn is crying and at the same time a couple is breaking up  while another is confessing their love. Its important not to get to caught up in the bad because there's always good . 

Rebuff: I'm not one that believes in New Years resolutions. I'm glad for the people who do accomplish there goals but most people just leave empty promises. I think that if you have a goal you want to accomplish you should start right away. I feel as though people wait until the New Year to start and then don't follow through. This reminded me of a quote I read from Looking for Alaska "You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth  thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present." I feel like people hope for changes in their lives because they want to be happier, but they never take the first step. They don't act on it so its just stuck as a daydream rather than an actual resolution. But today, like everyday, is the perfect day to do something great. So, Happy New Years! Now go do something to make this year better than the last. 

The Ethics of Social Media After Death

There are many questions dealing with what should be done (if anything)  with our online identity when we die. And ,of course, there are many different ethical perspectives we could use to attack these questions. Recently, I've read a New York Times article about life after death. I've also seen a TED talk by Adam Ostrow who also questions if our online identity should live on even long after we're dead.

Some of the questions asked are: "What happens to our online personality after we die? Could it...live on?"(-Adam Ostrow) Should it live on? What should happen to our social media accounts and blogs after we die? Should our families get to be in charge of our internet identities?

The should part is where different answers and perspectives of ethics and right vs.wrong comes into play. To answer Ostrow's question, our online personality can live on. He even says later in the video"But today we're creating this incredibly rich digital archive that's going to live in the cloud indefinitely years after were gone,". But the real questions that need to be asked is should we allow them to live on. Personally, I think its important to preserve these online profiles, but others may not want their life to stay on the web forever.

Many people haven't thought about this topic yet. As Rob Walker says "Not many people have given serious thought to these questions. Maybe that’s partly because what we do online still feels somehow novel and ephemeral, although it really shouldn't anymore. Or maybe it’s because pondering mortality is simply a downer." But, I think people should start taking this topic more seriously.  Most people see these questions as silly topics because its just Facebook, but whats on there Facebook is important. I think Facebook profiles should be memorialized ( along with other sites) because our online profiles are the equivalent of the scrapbooks, photo albums, and diaries we never made in person but are online. Going back to what Adam said, ".. we're creating this incredibly rich digital archive that's going to live in the cloud indefinitely years after were gone," By memorializing we are allowing the option of other loved ones to share pictures of the deceased.  The ability to do this is more amazing than it seems. Before websites were created things were hand written and pictures printed instead of stored on phones. And, although they may seem to be more precious, there made out of material, meaning they will fade and be destroyed. The NY Times article comes across this by saying "Something else happened at the same time: the family realized that a big batch of slides in his grandmother’s possession had faded beyond recognition. Hunt was stunned. 'Memories that were precious to me — not just living them, but after that going back and revisiting them — and now it’s gone,' he recalls. 'I thought: I really need to do something.' ” This makes a valid point that the things we put online(unless deleted) will stay in perfect condition forever.

Think about it; if I were to write out this post instead of typing it,eventually it will fade, but maybe many years from now my grandchildren can stumble across this site, in the pile of trash that is my online identity, and read this very post. It is somewhat of a morbid thought to think about death, but with death comes new life and its cool to think that even though I never met my great grandmother, my great-grand-kids can look at my profiles and get an idea of the person I was and hear about my life without me having to be there to tell them.
Questions like "Should our families get to be in charge of our internet identities? Should it live on?" cant be answered with a general yes or no, these types of questions have different answers for every person because everyone has different morals. The deceased should tell what they ant done to their profiles,  like an addition to their will, because the family may have different opinions. The New York times article talks about a situation where a web pioneer lost her digital legacy due to the family wanting people to remember her for her. But its possible she would have wanted different, the article writes “Her work is her legacy,” one admirer, Rogers Cadenhead, wrote to Harpold’s niece, Melissa Krauskopf, an attorney who served as the personal representative of Harpold’s estate. “I have corresponded with several of Leslie’s friends about her sites all disappearing from the Web. For what it is worth, all of us believe that she would not have wanted that to happen.” There are ways for this to be prevented: there are sites Adam talks about that help you decide what you want done with your personal identity.

In conclusion, even though I believe our identities should be able to live on forever in the cloud, not everyone feels the same way. Everyone has different opinions and views on whats right and whats wrong.