Wide Spot: Cellular Life
In 1837, the botanist Matthias Schleiden and the zoologist Theodor Schwann had dinner together. Comparing their research while they ate, they realized that there was a deep uniformity between Schleiden’s plant structures and Schwann’s animal structures. Both plant and animal tissues were built of cells: autonomous, independent cells, living their own life. At the same time, those cells were participating in the larger life in which they were embedded. Schleiden later wrote, “Each cell leads a double life, an entirely independent one, belonging to its own development alone; and an incidental one, in so far as it has become part of a plant.”
My imagination was captured by this story, because it tells another tale of double life. Schleiden and Schwann were two independent researchers, each studying in his own area, but both were part of a larger laboratory under Johannes Müller. Double life: entirely independent, but embedded in a larger whole. Mutually supportive because they were each doing their own work.
Double life is the nature of being human. We live our own life, belonging to ourselves, working for our own development; and we live as a member of greater collectives. Every living community—be it a community of biological similarity (like a family), of like-minded persons (like a trail society or spiritual group), or of geographical proximity (like a village or mountainside)—is composed of constituent members.
What’s more, each of those constituent members have to be alive and taking care of its own business, or the greater collective can’t function. Problems start when the individual quits doing its own work—e.g., the pancreas fails—or the individual tries to take over another’s territory—e.g., cancer invades the lungs.
Think about the problems it causes when your neighbor burns garbage or a development is sited in a grizzly connectivity corridor. Think about the problems when one family member has an addiction. Think about the problems when politicians favor their cronies or seek absolute power. When we don’t take care of our own life and health, and when we don’t respect the lives and health of those around us, the larger organism gets sick.
Our responsibility to the whole is to care for our own lives and to resist trying to control the lives of others. Our unhealth impacts the greater whole; our greed impacts the greater whole.
As I’m writing this, I’m not just thinking about the collective us. I am preparing to leave for sabbatical time. I’m tired. Prolonged tiredness reduces my capacity to be present, and impacts my participation in the larger community. So I’m taking some time to sleep, to garden, and to ponder what comes next. Rest and restoration are part of our human responsibility to ourselves and to each other.
While I go rest, there’s a treat in store for you. Claire Paradis—former reporter for this paper, librarian, and author—is going to be guest-writing the Wide Spot. Enjoy her brilliance, and I’ll see you later this summer.
You can see more Wide Spots and other writings by Therese DesCamp at www.widespot.ca.