1 + 1 = More
Extraordinary Lessons from
An Ordinary Pair of Chopsticks
Years ago, as a junior medical student, I was holding tractors in a long, complicated surgery way above my pay grade. As the professor was about to call it a wrap, a tiny bone fragment was found wedged in a tight joint space. No surgical instrument could reach in to remove it.
Struggling, sweating, and swearing, the surgical team started to seethe. Leaving it would guarantee post-op acute infection and chronic arthritis. Re-opening the joint would add much trauma and risk to the patient.
Stuck!
Sheepishly, I suggested pinching it out with two surgical steel pins right there on a tray. To me, they looked like those pointy Japanese chopsticks, only much skinnier. No one else there knew how to use chopsticks “expertly”. After failing many more attempts and exhausting all sophisticated instruments, the professor finally said to me, “Go ahead, you try it.”
In seconds, I got that little chip out with a pinch. It was a wrap.
I learned two lessons:
(1) An ordinary person with ordinary means can do extraordinary things.
(2) One chopstick can do little; a pair can do many things, even extraordinary things.
. . .
1 – ½ = 0
We, the people, have been split into two halves that are deeply and bitterly divided. If we can’t listen to each other and live as one body, we should at least learn from our own individual bodies.
Our two eyes must see together in order to perceive depth.
Our two ears must hear together to discern a message.
The left and right heart chambers must beat together in synchrony to pump blood.
The two halves of the brain must harmonize together to generate any thought or action.
Turn one side of the body against the other, and you get distress, disease, and demise in return.
To weaken one half of the body is like getting struck with hemiparesis, a major stroke. You end up with less than half of the capabilities of the whole—if you even live.
The two halves of the body are not exactly equal, yet they are mutual, meaning each contributes something different, complementary, and essential. Here, two halves add up to be greater than one. ½ + ½ = >1 isn’t math; it’s a miracle. And this miracle reliably keeps us alive, flourishing even.
We don’t really know how the miracle of our body works. We know for sure what happens if we suicide-bomb it.
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Each of your body’s cells, tissues, and organs has its own “identity”, “tribe”, agenda, and self-interest. Yet, your kidneys don’t hate your guts, attack your heart, or bash your brain. In fact, if you’re hemorrhaging, they will sacrifice themselves by shutting down to save the more vital organs.
In medicine, a cure is defined as total eradication of an abnormality. Modern medicine freely admits that not many diseases can be truly cured. In deep medicine, to heal means to optimize the whole—with all its parts, good, bad, and in between—together as one.
Not everybody can be cured, but everybody can be healed.
Metacardio®
. . .
½ + ½ = >1
We, the people today can heal after a mindset reset to live with the reality that all fellow citizens are one people in one body. Then, and only then, our individual and collective natural tendency and intelligence will come up with the right ways for us all to heal together and advance, instance by instance.
When we allow conflicts between our two sides to overtake civility, that is not merely a bad habit. It is fatal. Never forget, “THEY” are, in fact, the other half of OUR body. Not separate and beyond equal, we are one! We must let our body wisdom guide us into a healing habit of oneness—all in one and one for all.
1 = All … All = 1
Images by Metacardio
Extraordinary Living by Ordinary Means 2024