A Symphony for Living

At conception, you are handed a brand new, never-been-played-before genome. This genetic code is a compilation and construction of genes passed to you from your parents, packaged in the form of chromosomes, contained within your cells, that will be the foundation for who you become.

Consider your cells to be like a piano in your living room. Also, pretend you don’t know much about pianos—or cells, for that matter. Sitting there in your living room, this shiny box with its white and black tiles looks pretty, interesting, pretty interesting. On closer inspection you discover that the multiple tiles on the surface of the shiny box are mobile; you call them keys. You notice that if the keys are pushed, vibrations and sounds come from the shiny box. By opening the shiny box you discover little hammers striking fine strings that then cause the strings to vibrate, creating sounds.

You note as you play with the keys that sometimes the sounds seem pleasant and sometimes the sounds are unpleasant, aversive, and annoying. With some interest and time, you discover you can push keys sequentially, as well as multiple keys at the same time, to produce a flow of pleasant sounds. You’ve discovered that when you play the keys on this shiny box, the box makes music. A piano makes music.

Or does it? In reality, most of the time a piano takes up space and does essentially nothing. When a piano player interfaces with the piano, it makes music. The player and the piano together do something neither can do apart. The combination of the two, player and piano, are needed to push the keys to hammer the strings to produce the sound waves to resonate and emanate from the shiny box. When the piano and the player interface then the combination creates sounds that subsequently are interpreted as either noise or music.

Consider a cell. Consider the receptors on the surface of the cells to be the keys to be pushed on the piano. Consider the transcription factors within the cells that receive information from the receptors of the cell to be the hammers that strike the piano strings. Finally, consider the genes that make up the chromosomes to be the strings of the piano. Once a gene is “hit” it produces its own form, a protein. The orchestration of all of these actions produces physiology, much like the orchestration of the player and the piano creates music.

With a piano, all strings are not always played within a song, nor are the strings ever playing all together, all at the same time. Sometimes certain strings are played together to produce chords. The strings are orchestrated and played by the player selectively to make sound and music, sometimes pleasant, sometimes not.

The genes within your cells are very similar to the strings in the piano. Sometimes genes are played and sometimes not. Genes are never all playing at the same time. Sometimes genes are played in clusters. The genes are orchestrated and played selectively to produce proteins and physiology. This physiology, too, can be pleasant—or not.

The piano player interfaces with the piano thus creating the music. However, in this metaphor, you are actually not the piano player. So who is the piano player? Who is playing your cells? You are the composite of the cells, but not the player of the cells. The reality is the player isn’t so much a who but a what.

The environment, both internal and external, is the player of your cells. The environment sends molecular inputs to the cells to push the keys to hammer the strings to produce the proteins to orchestrate the physiology. Different genes and sets of genes are played in a choreographed form to produce a concert of physiology.

In fact, given the many different aspects of your environment that determine your genomic expression and physiology, and the trillions of cells in your body, this process is much more like many musicians within a full orchestra of cells, chromosomes, and genes than a lone player and piano. You and your physiology are complicated.

Environment Essential Reads

Climate Heats Up Youth Across the Political Spectrum

Is Viewing Water Outdoors More Restorative Than Green Spaces?

As with your piano, your cells do nothing without a player. The keys don’t move. The hammers don’t strike. The strings remain still. There is structure, but no life. There is no you.

The piano doesn’t make music unless the player strikes the keys to hammer the strings. The genetic code doesn’t make physiology, doesn’t make life, unless the environment strikes the receptors to stimulate the genes. You don’t exist without this interface. The self arises from the interface of the player—the environment, the keys—the receptors, the transcription factors— the hammers, and the strings—the genes. Perhaps, consciousness arises here, too.

Of note, the musical notes written on a piece of paper are a description of the music but not the music itself. The epigenome is similar to a sheet or score of music notes in that it describes the genes in the genome that may be played, a predictor of the physiology, but the epigenome isn’t the physiology itself. Epigenetic changes are the equivalent of rewriting a musical score. Once played on the piano the new musical score will sound different or, in your epigenetic case, once the new epigenome is played your physiology will be different; you will be different.

The genome remains relatively stable or static over time, but your epigenome and your physiology are changing all the time, as the environment is changing all the time. The environment changes to strike the keys differently and in turn activate the strings differently. Because your environment is in constant change, you are in constant change. Unlike the player and the piano in your living room, the environment is playing all the time. There is no stasis to your environment and thus no stasis to your physiology. You are never the same from moment to moment.

Recognize, you have relatively little direct control over these environmental, molecular, and cellular processes, yet, even though you are not the player of your cells, the producer of your physiology, nor the creator of your life, you do have some conducting control over this orchestra.

What determines whether you experience your physiology as pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant is whether your internal and external environments are safe or not. Yes, it is that simple at a rudimentary level. However, getting out of states of threat and into states of safety is much more complicated. Nevertheless, it is where we should start and finish as we are able.

You can’t control all the environmental, molecular, receptive, transcriptive, epigenetic, and physiologic factors at play in your life, but where you can control these factors you should always choose to conduct and orchestrate safety for yourself. Perhaps, even more important, once you are safe, always choose to provide safety to others. Providing safety to others plays the safety genes in others and reciprocally increases safety for you.

Playing the safety genes leads to a physiology of regeneration, growth, wellness, health, and happiness. Playing the threat genes leads to a physiology of degeneration, pain, illness, disease, and suffering.

So, here are the keys you can play as the conductor of your genomic orchestra:

• Know what you can’t control in the world: Let go.
• Know what you can control in the world: Engage in safety.
• Know that you can’t control others or the world: Be safe for them.
• Know that the world can harmonize in both threat and safety: Choose safety.
• Play a symphony of safety for the world.
• Ask the world to synchronize and harmonize with you in safety.
• Then let the world and your genome make heavenly music.

Stay safe and stay tuned,