Progeria

This is a curious case, indeed. At least F. Scott Fitzgerald seemed to have thought so with his exposition on his fictional character, Benjamin Button, who had a rare, albeit fictional form of progeria, which is a rare and true form of a genetic disorder that makes seven year-olds look like seventy year-olds. We – and by ‘we’, here, I mean ‘I’ – take for granted that everything just “goes right” in the developmental process in the location that David called the “secret place”. The reality that one cell is more complex in its dynamics than New York City at the macro-level (and, of course, the macro level includes the cockroaches crawling through the sewers) is enough to make one knock their knees together in trembling trepidation of its creator and wonder at its marvel, or at least it should. Nonetheless, just a few atoms failing to attach, or in progeria’s case, detach themselves from a few other atoms leads to what would otherwise be a spry young lad or lass looking as if they had lived through both World Wars. These children have mercy of realizing with more profundity just what a vapor life really is, as almost none of them live to the age of being capable of reproduction. They do not have to walk through this veil of tears very long, though their bodies tell them that they have already. Rather than living under the lifelong illusion that this life is long compared to eternity, they have the more accurate perspective that it is short, indeed. What an advantage they have over most of us!