Gratitude

• 25 May, 2023
• • Life

Why you are lucky to be here

So while migrating this post from my old blog, some images are not saved and are lost. You may visit the original post hereSingaporeans are obsessed with lucky draws. When a vehicle breaks down, not only the lanes in the same direction slows down because of the broken down vehicle but the lanes from the other direction as well - because people think they will strike 4D from the from license plate numbers. When a queue forms in front of a nondescript shop within the HDB heartlands, its almost guaranteed to be a Singapore Pools shop. But maybe you are one of the lucky few who have struck lottery and are now reading this from (insert idyllic island/ resort here), being attended by attractive women or men waiting on your every command? But what if I say everyone reading this is lucky. In fact, very lucky. Extremely lucky. As- tound- ing- ly lucky. To be here. Consider this. The chances of someone being born right now is the result of each parent meeting each other, both taking fancy, agreeing to be exclusive, rejecting the advances of other suiters, accepting each other's flaws and shortcomings. making sure both are aligned across long term goals and values, lasting long enough to copulate, overcoming life's uncertainties and bear an offspring. Not so easy. Finding someone with a pulse compatible Tall. Dark. Handsome. A simple criteria for my boyfriend. A list like that may exist for you and it could have criteria made up from childhood fantasy, teenage delusion and maybe a little bit of adult hopeful optimism.I'm an 8, so I'll settle for a 10 or maybe a 9. Lets say your criteria for a spouse is this+- 3 years my age same religion same cultural background Someone pleasing to the eyes Stable (enough) career, maybe earning enough so you both make it to household median wage of SGD10K Likes animals (or at least the ones I keep at home)Pretty simple right? Lets assume you want to find somebody. Like right now. But before that, lets assume something else about you. You are in your late 20s, just got out of university, found your first job and are looking to get into a relationship because you haven't had any luck in university despite your best efforts trying to say, pick up girls. Singapore has a population of 5.64 million as of June 2022. If you are a guy, you are probably looking for someone younger, maybe by 3 years going by the national median so that's already within the 20-24 age bracket.From population trends 2022 Well it still seems like there are plenty of fishes in the sea! You may say. Yes but this is just one criterion - age. If you add in other big criterions like education, socioeconomic background, religion, all of which influences some very big values like do you support euthanasia, do you believe in God(s), do you believe in the traditional roles of men and women, do you want to have kids to small but still important things like where do you go for dinner? at the nearby coffeeshop or at Ding Tai Feng, what do you spend your money on, communication style, etc. Each of them acting like another filter, separating the wheat from the chaff. Oh and while we are there, add this to the list as wellwants to date Socially available to youObviously doesn't mean that they are a fabulous catch means they want to date you or even socially available to you. Or maybe this awesome guy just wants a fling. Or maybe this girl you see around the campus is from business and your are from IT and your paths do not cross. Taylor swift may check all the boxes but she will most probably not be interested in you or know you exist.I can't put Taylor Swift here so here's an attractive woman instead Social apps like Tinder or even meetup is really helpful in this area because it allows you to jump out of your zone and interact with other people with similar interests or goals and it presents facts, preferences upfront. Apparently people lie about their hairstyle. And remember that's just your side of the equation. Your prospective partner will need to feel the same way about you too. That's right, another thing to add on to your listLikes you backNow your list is huge, so I think Auntie Sima's advice is not unrealistic because something's gotta give, right?Go watch it. Its good for the first season at least. Probably because of Aparna. Probably So you decide oh okay, she doesn't have to look like a model or he does not need to have a car and just keep an open mind. And even if you do end up with the one, that's not to say the relationship will definitely work out. A relationship may marinate and simmer for a decade to ultimately end up in separation. Fortunately cupid's arrow does strike true now and then and singles usually get paired off before their 40s. But we ain't out of the woods yet..From population trends 2022 Seems like men mortality rate is higher in their 60s compared to women. Doing the Deed When I was in secondary school, I remember there was this huge anticipation before a no holds barred teacher led session to discuss about the forbiden topic - sex. Oh, I remember the atmosphere was so electrifying. All sorts of questions from the mundane to the profane spewed from boys' mouths. After the session, it just made me more curious than before about the deed. Turning into an adult and having matters more demystified, all I know about conceiving is inserting this phallic shaped appendage into a particular orifice repeatedly until a visible outcome is achieved and then Boom. Little mini me is born. Or rather, conceived. 9 months later of course.As my friend would put it, even instant mee needs time to cook Only after when my wife and I were trying to conceive, it cannot be further from the truth. I still remember thinking as an adolescent, I have always looked upon the subject of infertility with amusement. Wouldn't it be fun just having sex all the time? Why are people so frustrated about it? There are a couple of obstacles that I think every couple would face to a certain degree.Medical complications Biological processMedical complications Sperm count has been dropping globally, so what else is new? The culprit? Probably diet and microplastics. Diet is nothing new - with obesity rates raising sharply globally and a clear link between obesity and testosterone (overweight is just anything more than 25 bmi, folks. Obese is 30), its no wonder why our soldiers are not enough/malformed. A recent research from China has shown that plastics can be harmful to us because of just how ubiquitous it is. Remember the food web in our primary school science text book? Microplastics thrown by humans are consumed by small fishes which are then eaten by bigger fishes and then eaten by us. Yeah, you know how it goes.All your plastics are belong to us In the study, mice were split into 4 groups that consumed varying amount of microplastics (100 micrograms to 1000 micrograms per liter with particles size ranging from 0.5micrometer to 10 micrometer) for 180 consecutive days including 1 control group. Testosterone from the blood showed a marked decrease and guys, I hate to break it to you but it screws up your balls and sperm:Control testicular sections presented with normal testicular architecture, intact epithelial membrane with normal spermatogenesis and lumen full of sperm. Conversely, degenerative, atrophied tubules with vacuolated tubular generation, derangement of cell layers, and abscission of spermatogenic cells were observed in the PS-MPs (polystyrene microplastics) exposure groups. Moreover, exposure to higher concentrations of PS-MPs could cause more severe damage to testicular structures. ... The person who was blinded to each group took pictures of the sperm and counted at least 1000 sperm. Abnormal sperm morphology manifested as acrosome loss, cephalic (small head), acephalia (no head), cervical folding, and tailless — Jin, H., Yan, M., Pan, C. et al. Chronic exposure to polystyrene microplastics induced male reproductive toxicity and decreased testosterone levels via the LH-mediated LHR/cAMP/PKA/StAR pathway. Part Fibre Toxicol 19, 13 (2022).Of course testosterone is not spared either.From the same research paper quoted above, this illustrates the results of the testosterone harvested from samples both control and non control. Considering that we consume up to 5g of plastic per week, I don't think that work wonders for our health. And if you think going vegan is the solution, think again. We also inhale the stuff. God knows what's gonna happen to the human species couple of generations down. And these are just on the male side of the equation. There are also many complications from the female side including structural issues, hormonal imbalances and more. Biological Process When I was hunting for a job, I attended many many interviews and the interview is all about selecting the right candidate for the job like screening for personality fit, accessing your technical knowledge to maybe I don't know, presentation skills.Everyone else: What should I have for lunch later The same can almost be said of the fertilised egg's journey to a fetus. We all know about the sperm's journey from the landing site to the target site: the woman's white blood cells would attack the sperm, the sperms may not be able to propel itself properly, there may be insufficient sperms, etc ,etc. But what other perils lie beyond our single-celled hero? The first screening of the embryo is whether it is able to latch on onto the endometrium (which is the layer of tissue that lines the uterus). In the book "This is your brain on birth control", Susan Hill explains that rather than improve the chances of implantation, it hampers it. How do they know that? Read on.How do we know that? Well, scientists have tried to implant mouse embryos in a bunch of other locations on the body, expecting them to wither away and die since they were deprived of the endometrial lining to nourish and sustain them. Much to their surprise, what they found was exactly the opposite. Not only did these embryos not die; they flourished. These little despots mercilessly burrowed their way through the tissues wherever they were implanted, destroying everything in their wake as they rummaged around for arteries to tap into to fuel their continued growth and expansion. The endometrium is actually one of the hardest places to grow an embryo, since the environment is downright inhospitable to a newly fertilized egg. — Susan Hill on how they found out the endometrium was hazardous to the implantation process from her book "This is your brain on birth control"Susan theorises that from an evolutionary point of view, this will allow the mother's body to "test" the embryo if it is "fit" enough as a proxy to survivability in the wild. Otherwise the failed embryo will simply be expunged from the body after the cycle ends. Thus ensuring that the fertilised egg is of some quality if it is able to latch onto the wall. She goes on to mention that 32% of the embryos meet similar fate.Well, I know as men, our failure rate is wayyyyyy higher than that Often in movies we see the first sign of indication of pregnancy is the woman just hurling her guts out. And that my friends is the next screening process. You see, assuming the embryo passes the implanting test, it needs to be able to produce a hormone enough to stop the menstruation cycle lest it gets expunged as well. This hormone is called Human Chorionic Gonadotropin or hCG for short and performs a host of functions including stopping the menstruation cycle, thickening the uterus lining and causing morning sickness and some food aversion that may contain teratogens which are compounds that is thought to be bad for fetal development. Coincidentally testing for the presence of hCG is how pregnancy kits work as well. An additional 24% of fertilised eggs do not produce enough hCG to stop the menstruation cycle and gets flushed out of the body as well. Wrapping Up Do you think you are lucky now? The odds of our parents finding each other and avoiding life's mishaps and misfortunes to ultimately end up in each others arms then doing the horizontal (or vertical maybe) dance to have you as a gem in their lives. It is easy to not think about the probability of our own existence on earth and having offspring is not really special since if you think about it, even roaches have kids*. But I think it is always good to reflect and be grateful of everything that has to happen in order to produce you. If anything, if you feel lucky, go and try your luck at 4D. * - Chris Rock, Never scared