Living beings are filled with life.Manypeople believe that life is a bridge between the temporal and the eternity. To be more specific, it is the period between birth and death. Life is generally known as state of existence. For a man, his human relations, the business, pleasure, and social activities, constitute the necessity and the meaning of life. Anything that happens between an individual and the person he interacts with, matters a lot to keep a healthy life to continue as long as possible. Daily life requires a fair buying and selling of food, clothing and medicines for the sustenance of life without which existence will be at risk.
While living, every one aspires to achieve the dreams of his life. The dreams vary from person to person and so do the enthusiasm and the zeal geared to it by the dreamer. Some have the zeal but are short of the natural caliber that fits the activities to be carried out. Every activity has to coincide with the right quality of mind and character of the person in charge of the activities. In life, man struggles to come up possibly with exceptional piece of work that satisfies his soul’s desire and something that he leaves behind for his memorial, the fulfillment of his dreams.
Man is believed to be a traveller on the road that begins at birth and proceeds all the way to death. The road is either long or short but both have their smooth-tarmac and graveled, ups and downs, straight and winding, making the going easy or difficult. The impairment due to one thing or the other makes life rather more regrettable than enjoyable. The magnitude of the impact of stress varies from person to person; to some, it is easily manageable and to others, it is a misery. Such polarity, or possession of two contrasting or opposite qualities, a win-win or lose-lose case, has always been an indomitable challenge to humans. The stumbling blocks that are set on the path of life cannot be easily be removed; even the seemingly stepping stone turns out to be a stumbling one as there is nothing for certain that man can truly rely on. Unpredictability governs the law of life which one way or the other comes to an end no matter how hard the person tries to avoid such a gruesome experience.
It is always a frightful experience that one cannot get used to. It is ever new and ever unpleasantly striking. If possible, it should be shunned and avoided at every turn of life. It’s mere appearance on a distant horizon should have been an incidence of war that human beings ward it off before it comes any closer. The closer it gets, the more irreparably devastating is its impact. Merciless an enemy is death to whoever crosses its way.This devouring enemy is bent on taking away life that a man treasures more than anything in the whole wide world.It is always around lurking. It remains out of view, lying in wait and ready to attack. It is only a matter of time; everyone falls prey to it. Since creation, man has sought means to stop its attack ones and for all. Man could have paid anything to avoid it or in fact obliterate its existence from the universe; remove all signs of its presence anywhere, especially away from the vicinity of man.
But the tragedy of it is that the end of all living things is death. Humanity, how hard it tries, cannot stop old age and the eventual death; it is inevitable. Worse of all, this enemy can shorten the life of many people by accidents, severe illnesses, war and the like.In the Bible it says, we are like a mist that appears for a brief moment and then vanishes.Some people follow the principle of let us eat and drink today and die tomorrow. And you, too, when you face a very bad and insurmountable trouble, you might say same thing. Some lead their life in this pattern simply because it appears to them that life is short and hopeless.Many think that science can provide an answer to this question. Obviously, the developments achieved in science and medicine, have raised the ceiling of people’s age. Some scientists are trying to elongate people’s life longer than it should be.The results of the scientists’efforts, whatever they may be, have to provide answers to the following questions: why do we age? Why do we die?
Will the time come when our staunch enemy, death, vanishes? Since life is short and death is inevitable, the desire to live long has beenen graved in people’s hearts for as long as they existed on earth. There are a lot of stories that talk about people who have struggled to find out the secret that enables man to live long. For instance there are legends that are related to the Sumerians king Galgamshe’s tales.Galgamesh made a very arduous journey to find out the means to escape death, but it was all in vain. In 400 century BC, the alchemists found in China had attempted to make magical medicines that can enable man to live forever. As a result they made medicine in which mercury and arsenic are mixed in it. This medicine is believed to be the cause for the death of many kings of China.In the middle ages, alchemists in Europe tried to prepare food from gold; such a daring attempt emanates from the belief that since gold has the characteristic that does not expire, it can elongate people’s age. Even today biology and genetics researchers are trying to find out the cause of aging.This indicates that as ancient people were trying to make medicine that makes it possible, today, too, they have not stopped trying it. What result has such research come up with? In other words,it is a dream of creating a short cut to attain immortality, which is utterly impossible.
Currently, a lot of efforts are being made to find out the reasons and causes of aging. Scientists, who study about human cells, have presented about 300 hypotheses that explain why we age and die. As of late, molecular biology researchers, by making a change on genes and proteins, are able to make the cells taken from lab animals and humans not to grow old. Such results have encouraged some wealthy people to invest their money in the research that is intent on the objective of knowing the cause of death. Prolonging age is another aspect to be considered.Some biology researchers say that the beginning of aging is related to the tip of chromosomes known as telomere. While our calls multiply, telomeres protect the genetic information in our cells not to be dismissed.Nevertheless, the more cells, increase, the more telomeres decrease. In due course the cells stop multiplication and aging takes over.
In 2009, a Nobel Prize winner, Professor Elizabeth Blackburn and the members of her group, by making telomeres not to quickly become short,have found enzymes that make cells not to grow old quickly. Yet, in her report she explains that telomeres themselves do not prolong our age; they do not make us live higher than the set age ceiling. There was an attempt to stop aging by making changes in cells.When our cell age and stop multiplying, they can pass wrong information to disease-preventing cells nearby and this in turn can irritates our body, and makes us feel severe pain and eventually contract diseases. Recently, French scientists have made a change in the cells taken from old people. Some cells are taken from the centenarians. According to the head of the research group Professor Jan Mark, the study shows that it is not possible to revers aging.
Is it possible that science can prolong our age? Many scientists do not feel that medical treatments can prolong longevity higher than it has been so far.Of course, as of 19th century, human age ceiling has been rising. Primarily, this has happened due to sanitation, prevention of contagious diseases and the expansion of the use of antibiotics and vaccinations. Some genetic researchers believe that man’s age cannot be prolonged more than it is now.
The irony of it is that, humans, in view of the expanse of eternity, seem to forget how short-lived they are and indulge in greed, crime and hatred, more than in benefaction. So, what is the solution?
The Ethiopian Herald May 22/2020
BY JOSEPH SOBOKA
