Introduction to Decay

Decay is a thing which affects all living organisms.  All of them.  All.  All.  

Do you get this?  Okay; going on.  

The human body is made up of more than one cell.  These cells are considered “alive.”  However, they cannot think for themselves, they cannot drink water, etc.  Because of their participation in the body of the organism known as the human, they gain the ability to participate in many of those things that they cannot do on their own.  Those cells, however, are indisputably part of a human body.  They are human cells.  To say that those cells are not part of a human is ridiculous.  Similarly, to say that a human made of many separate cells is not a living organism is utterly ridiculous.  

There is a way there that we can conceive of individual things part of a larger system, influenced/controlled by that system, utterly defined by their participation in that system, etc.  Yet, we are still able to conceptualize of that component as having some kind of identity on its own.  A living thing might be part of your fingernail, you might have a hand even though your whole body is just a whole bunch of cells lumped together, and that hair you brushed off your shirt in the garden last year might just be dirt.  

Think of a human trying to reproduce while it cannot breathe air, or a mother trying to grow a baby while she cannot breathe air.  See how humans are part of their environment?  See how being independent of that environment is a narcissistic delusion.  You live only and ever as part of that environment.  If you don't agree, don't take breaths for just 10 minutes.  Just 10!  Or, go give a tiger a loving hug, explain that it is a philosophical test, and plug that tiger's nose for just three minutes while singing soft, soothing hymns about how S.R. made that tiger's forebears.  Again, see how humans are part of their environment?

In this way, a group formed out of humans is like a living organism.  The group known as France, for example, can reproduce, take actions, absorb nutrients, and expel waste, etc.  (Take note that it can do those things even if it is not doing one of them.)  Constructions made up of humans are like humans themselves, being collectives of living components.   

Do you get this?  Okay; going on.  

Imagine that an old woman dies in western Alaska.  Besides this, imagine that an old man dies in southeastern Australia.  Throw in one in northwestern Spain too, just to make better geographical coverage.  Those three people all get buried.  

Before they get buried, expert morticians work on those bodies.  The morticians replace those dead peoples’ blood with preservatives.  Those bodies are treated with other powerful chemicals.  

A year passes.  Then, two years.  After that, 100 years pass.  At that point, due to some kind of program, those bodies get exhumed (dug up).  Do they look the same as when they were buried?  Remember that those bodies were treated with really cool, really powerful chemicals.  In addition, remember that those were highly trained morticians trying their very best to keep those bodies looking just the same.  

No.  Those bodies look decayed.  1,000 years later, they look even more decayed.  10,000 years later, maybe they’re gone entirely.  

Why does this happen?  Magic?  No.  Decay.  

But the same thing happened at about the same rate to all those people.  Is it magic?  No.  Decay.  

It may seem unbelievable, but there are forces operating all over the world that consume dead bodies.  This isn’t a conspiracy theory.  It isn’t, even though it involves teams you can’t even see of things that eat up dead bodies across the entire world.  

Now, imagine something else.  Imagine a person dropping a metal ball in Alaska, a person doing the same in Siberia, one in South Africa, one in Japan, one in Mexico, one in Argentina, and you can pick several other countries for yourself.  As many as you want.  What happens?  The answer is that all of those metal balls fall down at about the same speed!  It may seem unbelievable, but there is a force operating all over the world that makes this happen.  We bet you know what the force that makes this happen is called.  There is a word just for this.  That force has agents working the same in Alaska, Siberia, South Africa, Japan, Mexico, Argentina, and even any other place you picked.  

How can that be?  How can that be real?  Is it a conspiracy theory?  

No!  It is just the way things are!  Earth has what is called gravity, which all planets have. 

Anyway, gravity is spoken of because it is part of the environment.  That is how decay works.  Anything on the entire planet Earth decays.  This is not an unnatural thing.  This is a completely natural thing.  Completely.  If something dies in Bangkok, Timbuktu, wherever, decay starts working in both of those places.  Even if something dies in Antarctica, and is not buried in a lot of ice, it decays!  This is why many snowy places are not covered with the bodies of dead polar bears.  You can often breathe air that is not filled with the corpses of trillions and trillions of microorganisms.  When things live, they die after a while, and those bodies do not stay around.  There is a process whereby the bodies things use to live change around to become part of Earth’s environment again.  If you are not sure about this, if it sounds like a conspiracy theory to you, then you can test it out for yourself by burying a dead thing in a garden, and then checking back in a year to see if that thing has changed.  

Imagine an old man getting older.  He does not jump as high, run as fast, lift as much, etc. as he used to.  There are little pains he didn’t have before.  Things have changed.  Can you imagine that?  (It happens a lot.  If you think it is a conspiracy theory, wait until you’re older.)  

Next, imagine all the people from the earlier example getting older.  All at once.  Is it a conspiracy theory that those changes happen to all of them, and to 1,000 other people besides, in a slow progression based upon those people’s age?  

No, it is not.  It is not a conspiracy theory.  

Decay is like this.  It happens to every single thing on this entire planet.  Billions and billions of things are decaying now.  As you read this, so many germs are dying, and the things which make up their bodies are becoming part of the bodies of other things.  Not a single body is missed.  Absolutely no one (human) gets lucky and lives until they’re 180.  Decay gets everyone.  Billions and billions of people have decayed.  Never with even a single one being missed.  

Got it?  It is really simple.  

You understand then that decay happens to all things?