Clockworks: The Story of Drugs — Part 1

In this installment, I will discuss why it is difficult to discover, design and develop a drug, in view of our current knowledge of physiology.

With numerous, intertwined reactions happening, our body is a complex clockwork of biomachinery gears. What do you do, then, if some gears fail—that is, if you got sick? On one hand, it is a consolation that many gears are what biologists call 'redundant', which means that it's alright that a certain gear fails, because there are other gears that can take over its function. On the other hand, due to the intricacy of the gears, it is hard to pinpoint which gear is the problem, let alone fixing it. And the sheer number of gears: ICD-10 classifies tens of thousands diagnoses — tens of thousands ways the gears can fail — and those are only the ones we know; how about those we don't? Granted, some are not caused by our own gears failing, but by interferences of other, pesky gear systems: viruses, bacteria, misfolded proteins, errant microbiome, etc.; but the sense of magnitude is there.

The Pool is Indifferent to My Mortality:

It occurred to me twice, first when my chest tightened out of nowhere,
second when I was One with the chlorine water,
having waded interminable laps on the way to two hundred,
the Enlightenment.
The pool would utter, if it can think aloud like the lake in Narcissus, with the royal plural pronoun:
You don't have a set of gills, yet you dare treading in our watery realm?
(But then, in retrospect, fishes, or other possessors of gills, would die in chlorinated water)
You could almost hear this voice resonating in the back-and-forth lapping of the surface,
guided by gentle breeze of the rain prelude.
Mind suspended in contemplation, body suspended in this sort of reverse amniotic fluid
(it doesn't give birth; it kills)
I studied my almost still shadow on the pool floor,
tangled in strands of light, enmeshed
with what looks like the very fabric of Nature itself,
Yes, in the beginning was Let there be light, wasn't it?
And I wondered if I was being brought to the beginning or the end,
the amniotic fluid or the formaldehyde,
kindled or extinguished.

Did You Know It's Christmas?

When I was on the way home from the Christmas Eve service, I heard this song again: 

Someone in the car then remarked that it makes him a little uncomfortable, asking Mary repeatedly did-you-know because she did know, albeit partially, about these things.

Well, I think that's a-little-too-matter-of-fact way of looking at it. The way I look at it:

First, I believe the questions are somewhat rhetorical -- indeed Mary knew; the angels told her some things, even though most likely she knew not the full implications of what was about to happen to her. Which brings me to the second: the tone of the question is not interrogative but jubilant. Like the chorus in a play, we are called to sing along the heavenly hosts, eager to share our own excitement, the generations down the line who have been blessed, saying Amen to Mary's Magnificat: I shall be called blessed (Luke 1:46-55). In effect, the lyricist also calls us to put ourselves in Mary's shoes, sharing her joys of being chosen as an instrument of God. In fact, moments into the song, the word that immediately occurred to me was vicarious -- in other words, we are called to take part in the Magnificat, transcending the timeline gap and experience what Mary experienced, particularly her joy, vicariously. This perspective (heavenly host singalong) is certainly unusual and as there is a dash of dramatic irony too, since we already know what is going to happen, Mary didn't. All in all, it makes you think. Literary spices are useless if the ingredients are stale in the first place. 

So ponder. Sing. Don't eat too much. Did you know you are going to have a blessed Christmas?

Caesius

Unfortunately I haven't had many chances to answer 'caesius' when asked what my favourite colour is. What I would like to tell foremost is the reason why it is my favourite. It's a soft colour and pairs quite well with any other, sure, but it is a little bit more than the mere visual quality -- it's rather synaesthetical. Caesius is foremost the colour of emission spectrum line of caesium, the alkali metal that is its namesake. It invokes the alchemist, the transformer of things. Secondly, well, it is the colour of the sky and the sea, the two great expanses that we are sandwiched between. There is a poetic quality to it -- it evokes Genesis' "the waters above and the waters under". One poet expressed this quality like this: "The dolphins that stitch the sky to the sea", and yet another. It reminds us that we are part of the firmament that stitches the sky to the sea. That we are the waters between, our hearts sky-blue expanses, transparent and vast. 

Sidetracked

Treading on the dampened track, heavy fatigue-laden steps, soft whisper of night breeze, the night sky awash with moonshine, rivulets of sweat streaming down, breath punctuated by wheezes, vast expanse of track neatly divided by white bold lines, bad timing of 14:02, roughness of the track on bare feet, cars and buses gliding almost noiselessly outside, the orchestra of crickets, low constant buzzing and intermittent sounds by tiny fiddlers, mate-calling, peering into a puddle, looking for moon's ghost, submerged mirrory watery city found instead.