Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Mitochondria Calling the Shots!

This Nick Paumgarten article about Energy in the latest New Yorker is just the best: 


I realize Nick and I have lots in common. We are both long-time Dead Heads, be sure to read his fabulous write-up about The Grateful Dead here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/11/26/deadhead

And we are both obsessed about the topic, subject and form of Energy. 

What is it? Where does it come from? Where does it go? How can I get it? Or how do I get it back? How can I better manage it?

Of course, it's a great write-up, funny, informative, and it turns out that the more you look, the more you see, the less clear things become. Kind of like everything else in the Universe.

Energy. It animates everything. But it is a elusive, mysterious. It all goes back to Mitochondrial Eve, you know 

"the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all living humans. In other words, she is defined as the most recent woman from whom all living humans descend in an unbroken line purely through their mothers and through the mothers of those mothers, back until all lines converge on one woman."

Right. Earth Mama.  

Nick writes, and our heads start exploding:

"It’s not inconceivable that the rest of the body (brain, hands, heart, lungs, digestive tract) is merely an elaborate and sometimes clumsy apparatus for the nourishment of the mitochondria—that it is the mitochondria, and not Homo sapiens, who rule and foul the earth. Our cardiovascular system, that fantastic and vulnerable machine, is essentially a delivery system for the oxygen they require. The mitochondrion is the creature and we are merely its husk, its fleshy chrysalis. A newborn’s first breath? That’s the mitochondria, calling the shots."

So, yeah, back to the poets. Wm. Blake: Energy is Eternal Delight.  

Mojo. It's all about the Mojo... and the mitochondria!