Artificial Heartbeat???

     Today I watched a movie, after the encouragement of a friend who found it interesting. The movie is called "Repo Men". The story shortly is about a company which "sells" artificial limbs and organs to people who need them, whilst when those "clients" are not able to afford the send their "Repo Men" to repossess those organs for the company. The story evolves such a "Repo Man" who becomes the prey of the company when he gets a transplanted artificial heart after a heart attack while being on duty. I am not writing this post to criticize the movie (I am not a movie reviewer, I only watch them for fun), nor am I doing it to talk about the ethics that arise from such movies (cause if our society someday ends up saving lives of people for the sake of money, and then repossessing that life given, then we are doomed to lose the very thing that our species is named after..Humanity). I had another strange idea while watching this movie. I put myself into the shoes of the protagonist, thinking myself living with an artificial heart. Would my life be different??

     Scientists for many decades have been trying to simulate the way the human heart functions. And it's been a long term obligation for them to create a fully operational artificial human heart. Many steps have been made. And the past years surely have been a breakthrough towards this direction. There have been created hearts entirely made of mechanical parts. Most of them (and it has been a very successful application) are being used as aids for those who have heart conditions. Others have been temporal aids to help a person who undertakes a surgery stay alive along the way of the long hours of the surgery. And the latest innovation has been creating "live" hearts from real tissues of animals. The goal itself is probably the noblest of all. To use technology and science to create a heart which could save a human life is nothing less than a divine deed. I am no scientist, no doctor or surgeon. But I am thinking of something that I don't know if any of them has ever thought about. It would be astonishing to be able to recreate other organs (such as livers or kidneys) for people who need a transplant. But can an artificial heart fully replace a human heart??


     Has anyone of you ever been chased by ravenous dogs?When in danger the heart doubles or triples the rate of the beats, pumping more blood to the organs that need it. Has anyone of you ever been involved in a serious car accident or witnessed such? After the crash there is a weird silence and the only thing that is alive and can be heard is the heart beating fast. Has anyone of you ever come face to face with the love of your life, with your soulmate? The heartbeat explodes to outrageous rates, making it almost a full body experience. Every single beat can be felt all over the body, and you can even actually listen to the heart beating even in the most noisy places. For many years I was being rational, believing that the mind was the place of every cognition of the human soul. I believed that the heart was only a tool, a pump which would circulate blood around the body. But the heart is alive. It breathes. It feels. I can tell stories. It can feel pain and joy. To be true there is no scientific proof, why the heart beats faster (or slower) according to the conditions that happen outside the body. And it is also true that you can lay relaxed on your bed and only a single thought or feeling can erupt and make your heart go beating like a steam engine at full speed. I believe like many of the urban legends and poets do, that the center of a human existence is the heart. The only muscle that can think and order. The heart does have a mind of it's own. It works abruptly and independently. Spontaneously and incompatibly sometimes. Cause the heart does have other rules, way different and more complicated than the ones of the mind. In a way, it craves for self preservation. And I know that sometimes the heart even feels lonely. It wants to be heard, it wants to be noticed. So it gives out signs of life. It creates circumstances. It's when we have that belief of something changing, the belief of something's happening but we just can put our finger on and say what it really is. It's the heart which talks to us in an "alien" language, which we can vaguely understand but immensely feel. And surely the brain and the heart speak that language too, and that's why sometimes they coordinate. But this happens only sometimes. Cause it's also true that sometimes the heart desires, and the mind rationalizes...and in between there is a huge conflict which could tear a human being apart. We choose accordingly to what we are. Others listen to the heart other the reason dictated by the brain. And that's what really makes us human beings.

     Taking into account all the previous and many many more "eccentricities" of the heart, how could we ever replicate the full functionality of a real human heart into a lab. Surely (and that's an incredibly great thing to do) we can extend the life span of people with heart conditions. And we can give them even years of life with a transplant of an artificial heart. But even if those hearts could ever be imbued with a chip, and the most sophisticated algorithm of the world, they would NEVER be able to simulate a real alive thinking human heart.  Maybe we can alter the curse of nature, and help people stay alive with human-made hearts, but can we make them work in so many levels as the "flesh" ones? We'll just have to wait and see where science can take it....

Angels..

     I know I will probably be called irrational with what I am going to say. But the truth is that being irrational doesn't necessarily mean that you are insane or wrong. I believe in Angels. I believe that angels exist. Not only they exist but they walk among us. It's a predicament way beyond the reason and the "normality" of the world we see with our eyes. Obviously. Cause what the eyes see is also what the eyes believe. And if someone pokes your eyes you become blind. But what the soul feels can't be blinded. Cause the soul does not listen with the ears nor sees with the eyes. 

     What would an angel like like I wonder? The truth is I don't know. It's only speculations I can make. You see,  an angel can be your dog, who is biting your trousers in search of attention and finally renders you late 5 seconds, as much as it takes to avoid a dreadful car crash, and saves your life (personal experience). An angel could be a traffic light which suddenly turns red, and while waiting you meet the love of your life. An angel could be a dream which prevents you from doing something wrong later that day. An angel could be your horoscope, a deja vu, a gasp of wind or a headline in the newspaper. If it is a small one we call it luck. If it is a big one we call it miracle. Whatever the name it's part of our lives. It is strangely said. But there surely are forces which bend the laws of time and nature to give us something we need or even something we later discover we needed to progress. It's not a coincidence that sometimes when we are down and broken, that very moment of real pain something happens. Something completely normal but in a way with a very peculiar power of changing your mood or a "bad luck" situation. Carl Yung came up with the theory of "Synchronicity", which is the closest any man of science has come to the theory of Angels which is attributed to the exact opposite world, the one of religion. 

     Angels exist in my opinion. And sometimes they take the human form. Cause some times we are so blind to see the facts unraveled before us, so someone has to take us by the hand and reveal them to us. We might not believe a dog or a gasp of wind. But we will surely listen and (maybe) believe the words of a fellow man. I believe that there were certain times in my life that some people appeared in front of me just to show me the way. Or prevent me from taking the wrong way. Strangely in retrospect I get to admit that those meetings with "my" angels had something magical. Cause they are crystal clear in my memory. We all have the impression of angels as winged full of light creatures, dressed in white and carrying a halo. Well I tell you that angels don't always were white. They can be a woman in rugs you meet on the street, a receptionist you never talked before, who tells you "don't change" just exactly the moment you are about to make a big mistake or a friend you met over the internet, who supports you in any way and you can't understand how can such caring is possible. Did this ever happen to you before. To hear wise words from a person who never was "intellectual" or hear comforting words and affection suddenly from a person who always was "cold" towards you. Sometimes those words and those action are being put there by Angels or God.  

     In my religion angels are winged creatures, who dwell in heaven. They are sometimes in the disposal of God, to help "us" people bellow. What if we all have a guardian  angel over our shoulder. What if there is an angel who takes different forms and helps us become what we are supposed to become. In my religion also there is a tradition which says that everyone takes the graces and the protection of the saint he has taken his name from. Something like a protection which comes from the name. Maybe that is an embodiment of an angel form.The entity of angels is also present in many other religions. And maybe that's a reason on it's own that proves their existence. 
    To conclude. Whether angels exist or not, is only a matter of personal opinion. Whether they have an impact in our everyday life is also a matter of opinion, faith and observation. Surely it's not a matter of debate. Angels will always appear and help both those who believe and those who don't. It's only that it is a beautiful feeling to recognize your angels, attribute them their offerings, thank them and listen to what they have to say (most of the times they speak with actions and not words though). Those angels are such a great company, cause they are happy when you smile and are trying to help you become happy when you're not..Just look around you. Maybe you see an angel who has hanged his wings and halo on the hanger!!!!

REAL life, REAL problems

     I borrow the words a good friend told me once. "Wake up. This is REAL life with REAL problems". This exact phrase is ringing in my mind for months now. It has been tranformed in my mind many times too. Sometimes the phrase itself calls me to abandon my dreamworld and use whatever power I have left to make something useful, to live the rest of my life. Proabably that was the intention of the person who told me this. Not to waste a life, into inactive dreams who (it's true) incapasitate all the strength and the power of someone's character. But on the other side there is another voice says "What if the people with the REAL problems don't even know that there is another life beyond the visible?. What if they are also stuck in a dream (the so-called American dream), which they have baptized REAL life?".My problem was (and still is) that I always saw life like a fairy-tale. Maybe fairy-tales are supposed to have a happy ending, but they also have a higher meaning hidden behind the stories and the words. My fairy-tale was not, and probably will never be such. Yet in every fairy-tale there always is a "happily ever after". I blame REAL people only for one thing. They don't care about the happily ever after. They only care for the "happily today". In parrarel with fairy-tales, when the "happily ever after" occurs all the characters are finally "happy" (except the bad guy of course). In REAL life's "happily today", only one individual is happy. And since life itself does have a sarcastic, twisted and poetic kind of justice, the happy individual finds out that living for yourself will only lead you to living by-yourself (usually surrounded by friend-liches and a blown out of proportions bank account). Of course the poetic injustice also strikes the dreamers. Living your life with a high ideal (be it in personal or any other level) is a lonely road. Sometimes a dead end road. A rocky mountainous windy road where the peak is always hidden in the clouds. I'd say that this is the cost for having high hopes and ideals. But it might be not much of a curse in the end. Cause if finally you reach that peak (being the fullfilment of those ideals one way or another) you will understand that it was worth the pain and effort. Someone who completes his path to the heaven of dreams is no better than any other. He is just the one who held tight to his beliefs. The one who wielded a sword and ran into the heat of the battle, while others stood on high hill with their bows never really used. It's he who lasted longer.


     The thing is that I always refused to see life as REAL. It's kind of strange to explain. It's all about dreaming. I used to grow up and see children around me saying "I dream to become this when I get old". Scientists,singers,actors,soccer stars...Children have such an imagination when it comes to dreaming. But like Pink Floyd said in one of their songs, "The child has grown, the dream is gone". That's what real life does. It gets our dreams "gone". Sometimes wipes them entirely from our minds. Sometimes keeps them hidden in a dusty attic up in our minds. While we grow up, we have to embrace reality. Meaning we have to compromise with everyone and everything. We have to train hard to become professionals usually in a field where later we get to hate, and just keep doing it conventionally for the sake of money. Even if it is not (only) for money in the end we keep on doing it, forever and ever.

     I had to lose my job, to understand that we live a life praising only a material thing called "money". Money brings comfort and safety. Money makes the world go round. But it puts our life into a halt. It puts our minds,our free thinking and will into a halt. Not even a halt. It puts us running in the rat race, running endlessly like guiny pigs inside a cage over and over again the same wheel. With no beginning or end. No reassess. No time to catch a breath. And then I had to live for some months in poverty, with no job and future so that I could finally understand that there is more to life than money. I had to compromise with everything only to see that the mind of a person who does not live in this God forsaken so-called REAL life, does not compromise. That mind is alive and active, and sometimes it takes all the humiliation and the pain of the word to effectively activate it. I've learned that when your mind does not compromise it is always wounded. And like in human body when we are wounded the whole body is in full alert. It was and still is difficult. Cause living like this surely takes away you every strength, no matter how strong you might be. Many different "bad" ideas settle in your mind when you have to live on the edge of the REAL world. And loneliness (both mental and physical) is a very heavy burden to bare.


     I also had to lose something else. I had to find love. True love. And I was sure that even if I could never get any other dream come true, I would at least get the chance to make the dream of a real healthy and full of loving relationship come true. In REAL life, it ended even before it had started. In my "dream" life it is still alive. It lives. It is like said an open wound. It still fights for the very same ideal. Love does fight indeed, every other single thought and feeling. It defends what it believes. It refuses to surrender, it refuses to compromise, it refuses to bargain with anyone and for anything. And TRUE love is a dream on it's own. It's not a coincidence that so many movies,songs and books have been written in the name of love. And I do believe that in many of such cases it was not even TRUE love but only a passing passion (which is of course strong indeed).


     What is REAL life then? Life is as REAL as we want it to be. After all we all see it differently. I have chosen the road of belief and the road of dreaming high. Wrong or right it doesn't matter. Although it does hurt like hell, I feel comfortable in it. To end I will only borrow lyrics of another song from Aerosmith called "Dream On"........
     - "Sing with me, sing for the year. Sing for the laughter, sing for the tear. DREAM ON.DREAM ON. Dream until your dream comes true".

Love is...................

Love Is............. (Part 1)










     - To stay awake all night, just to see her sleeping, listen to her breathing, feel her dreaming.
     - To have a great time with your buddies watching soccer and still can't wait to return home and see her face.
     - To look deeply in her eyes and see the reflection of yourself.
     - To see her kissing another man and still smile cause you know that she is happy.
     - To cut a hard grown rose from a garden just to put it in her hair.
     - To spend each night stargazing, hoping for a shooting star just to wish that she was there.
     - To be ready to kill for her, and even more ready to die for her.
     - To be a little (just a little) jealous when she hangs out with her friends or next to other guys.
     - To see her beautiful even when she is fresh awaken.
     - To cook her favorite food when she returns exhausted from work.
     - To lie on a beach with her counting the stars.
     - To cry every time she is sad, and smile every time she is happy.
     - To drive 800 klm just to leave presents outside her door.
     - To watch boring romantic movies with her only because she likes them.
     - To listen to her heart even when she tries to hide it.
     - To count every second,every minute,every hour every day that passes until the time you meet her again.
     - To close your eyes when she is far, only because you can see her in your mind.
     - To miss her just after she has closed the door behind her.
     - To see her face in every woman, to hear her voice in every crowd, to smell her perfume in the air.
     - To send her messages even when she never replies back.
     - To try and make her laugh even when you are crying inside.
     - To use duct tape and staples to repair your broken heart, so that you can keep on loving her


TO BE CONTINUED..................