We have all had our journey with this virus. It's taken us to places we may have never visited left to our own devices. It has created a giant warp in the weft of the tapestry of life.
Man. in all of his technological prowess, yet childish in nature, has once again stolen the keys and unlocked a box with no idea what the more significant ramifications are. The last time this happened was with the splitting of the atom and unleashing the atomic bomb.
I want to give you some of my background before we get too deeply into this topic. I think it is important to know our individual histories from which we speak, especially these days.
I am the youngest of 5 children. My parents were WWII generation. My father was a radioman on an aircraft carrier and went into Nagasaki shortly after the second bomb was detonated. WWII vets rarely spoke of their experiences but he opened up to me about his experience as he stepped on those shores. He told me, "Life, everywhere, had been decimated. " He also said he would never forget the images he saw that day.
I grew up in a household that honored all of life. We had multiple pets: dogs, cats, birds, frogs, fish, or toads brought home from the forest, even earthworms. We planted the obligatory victory vegetable garden every year in our backyard if just to learn the skills of gardening. My mother spent her small amount of free time in her flower beds, tending to her roses and planting annuals, filling the hummingbird feeders.
I learned biology from a very practical standpoint at home. I loved all the creatures, plants, and animals, so much, that by the time I made it to college that was all I wanted to study. I went to undergrad in the late 1980s when the field of genetics was booming. Genentech, the first corporation promising futuristic genetic solutions to all of our problems, came online.
However, the last biology class I took in high school, Advanced Placement Biology, really prepared me for the world I would later find myself in. We learned all about genetics and the structure of DNA, along with the infamous race to determine its structure, the blueprint for life. That alone gave me a reverence for this fantastic molecule that held the codes for life itself. My teacher also brought up ethics, and a discussion was had about the implications of man altering this structure, modifying the code, and even releasing it into the environment, with no opportunity to cancel it or bring it back.
Yes, my teachers were amazing. They trusted our young minds enough to bring up such topics and allow us to mull them over and discuss such implications. the good old days of education and teaching critical thinking.
My next memory regarding genetics in my educational history was sitting in a darkened auditorium, staring at some slides as the professor was teaching us about retroviruses: viruses, eg FIV feline immunodeficiency virus, SIV simian immunodeficiency virus, HIV human immunodeficiency virus, and how they worked by literally reverse engineering the DNA and creating havoc in the immune system.
As I sat in the dark, several things suddenly hit me. First, what an interesting progression from cats, to monkeys, to humans. As students of science, we all knew the labs were filled with mice, rats, CATS, and yes, monkeys. Humans were hands-off, supposedly. But how easy would it be to introduce SIV in Africa, where there are a lot of native monkeys, and somehow just slip in HIV, claiming it came from the apes in the jungle?
Second, the whole concept of retroviruses did not seem like anything that would follow naturally from the mechanism of natural selection or any other evolutionary mechanism for that matter. You see, they were still teaching evolutionary biology at that time as well.
As I sat there, all of these thoughts began coalescing in the critical thinking part of my brain, and I came up with my own lab-leak philosophy behind retroviruses. When I got into vet school and learned even more about feline retroviruses: FIP, FIV FeLV, and the fact that none of these appeared in any other species ???, my suspicions just became stronger.
Four years of college-prep high school, steeped in the sciences. Four years of undergrad biology education at a time when genetics was blooming as a discipline. Four years of veterinary school, studying virology, immunology, more genetics, working in the microbiology and clinical pathology laboratory having off-the-cuff discussions about how we were over-do and when the next pandemic would strike…
I approach this from a scientific, genetic, immunological, virology, Traditional Chinese Medicine, herbal medicine, and spiritual perspective. The quantum world is joining the rational - reductivist- materialist versions of reality with the spiritual, energetic etheric realms.
I hope you join me for part II.
My third bout with the Big V has pushed me to put my experience on record.
when will part 2 be publised?
"Life, everywhere, had been estimated. " I believe you meant to say "decimated".