It Isn't Practical

     Heide and I were visiting, two nonagenarians discussing some of the enigmas of life, the wonders, the puzzlements, and the age old "why are we here?" sort of things. In the course of the conversation, the subject memory, its miracles, its tricks, and the issue of the loss of it. I remarked that I had read that while the body regenerates many of its cells as they are lost to time or minor trauma, the brain loses vast numbers of cells daily, never to be replaced by new ones. Hence, I suggested, if I were to lose the cells that store my memories of you not only would those cells be lost, but you would be lost to me. Now understand that she and I are not scientists but rather lay persons pondering the wonders of life.

     Then, I said, why do the cells of the brain not regenerate? Heide's immediate response was, "Because it isn't practical!" 

     Thus, we found ourselves in a discussion of practicality, the necessity of one generation moving on to make room for the next, and so on. This portion of the conversation was concluded with her observation that "Nature is nothing if not practical." I told her that I was going to write a piece entitled "It isn't practical." And here we are.

     It is easy for me to imagine that "It isn't practical" entered the lexicon of mankind early on in his habitation of the Earth.  Say, for example, Cain, a gardener, or dirt farmer, if you will, brought a sacrifice of the bounty he had raised, because, as he might have reasoned, an animal sacrifice was impractical, as he would have had to barter his goods with, say, his brother Abel, a herdsman. And we all know the rest of the story.

     Skipping ahead to the dawn of The Enlightenment, we might picture Gutenberg, having "perfected" his press, attempting to sell the notion to his public and said public arguing that "It isn't practical," for there are not enough poor on earth to provide the necessary quantity of rags to feed the press even if we were to dispose of all the Earth's poor.

     I need not further the exercise, for any reader may imagine countless examples of progress stymied were the visionaries to cease dreaming and tinkering simply because they were told, "It isn't practical." Nature, we may conclude, is indeed practical. But man's imagination! Ah, the wheels of progress turn only when fueled by the imagination of the human mind.