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The other great episode of Note to Self was about transhumanism.  If you’re not familiar with transhumanism, it’s a movement for using technology to live a better, longer life.  I bet you’re thinking, “Oh, I use apps on my phone to lead a better life.  I guess I’m a transhumanist.”  But slow down, cowgirl.  There’s a little more to the story.

It’s really about using technology to extend your life or capabilities.  It’s about better living, through science, but like really really really through science.  Think about every human limitation: Our need for food and sleep, how quickly we can move, how far we can see.  And then think about addressing that need with science, such as removing our normal, healthy eyes and replacing them with robot eyes that can see miles into the distance.  Or, probably more accessible in the here and now, attempting to extend a person’s life span or cheat death indefinitely.

I’ll admit that while I don’t even cover up my grey to visually extend my youth in an easy, cost-effective way, I am intrigued by the idea of using technology to extend life.  Would I actually participate if it became possible?  I don’t know.  But it’s really interesting to think about.

I guess what it comes down to is this: If a loved one becomes ill, and there is a treatment for their illness, we expect them to do that treatment in order to extend their life — both for their own gain and for our gain, too.  If I became ill, I would accept the treatment not just for myself but because I feel I owe that to Josh and the kids (as well as my parents and siblings).

Would it follow that we would feel we owed ourselves and our loved ones the acceptance of these practices if they became mainstream?  If it was common to replace your heart with a robotic heart at 60, would you do it for yourself or your loved ones, or would you allow yourself to be one of the throwbacks who gracefully ages and dies at what would be — at that time — young?

I can’t say never because I wear glasses that enhance my vision, and if my doctor told me tomorrow that I would die without a mechanical heart, I would take that mechanical heart.  Moreover, I would still feel human even with that mechanical heart.

But I can see from that statement that it’s a field of grey; how much could I replace before I stop feeling like myself, and what if it was just to live better and not live longer?  As in, what if there was nothing medically wrong: Would I take the robot eyes just to see farther?  And since we clearly do things now to live longer, what is the age where we would be okay with death vs. feeling like we need to keep taking these steps to extend life and extend life and extend life.

Your thoughts?

As everyone knows, I love Note to Self.  She recently had Chade-Meng Tan as a guest. He’s a former Google employee who has become a writer and speaker on inner peace.

The entire episode is 24 minutes long.  You can listen to it here.  (Note to Self, I wish you could embed episodes!)

At the end of the episode, Meng gave listeners an exercise.  Every hour, on the hour, think of two people and say to yourself, “I wish for X and Y to be happy.”  Go ahead, try it.  Think of two people you know — or don’t know — and think to yourself, “I wish for Jack and Jill to be happy.”  (Except… you know… fill in their names.  Don’t say Jack and Jill because Jack broke his crown so happiness may be eluding him at the moment, anyway.)

I bet you’re smiling right now.  Maybe not a big, beaming smile, but a small one.  That’s what happened to me when I did this exercise in the car.  I thought of my two people and said the magic words.  And then Chade-Meng Tan pointed out that I was likely smiling, and I was.  It makes us happy to think about making secret wishes for other people; good wishes that may even come true.

Set a timer to go off every hour, and either think of two new people or the same people, and wish them happiness.  You can choose co-workers or family members or friends.  They can be people you’re seeing that day or people you’ll never meet.  They can be complete strangers; just someone you noticed in a restaurant who looks like he/she could use a little extra happiness.

If y’all are okay with it, I may send you a silent, secret happiness wish.

This blog changed my life.  Ten years ago, I felt so wholly alone as we delved back into treatments to add to our family, and I found all of you.  We haven’t had the exact same experience, and we come from diverse backgrounds and make diverse decisions on how to treat our infertility or loss.  But somehow this has always worked as an informal therapy session between us.

Thank you, blogging.

Yesterday I got together with my interactive fiction club, and it immediately launched into an informal therapy session about the election.  It’s not that I haven’t had that in other spaces over the last few days, but this conversation was exactly what I needed at the exact time; to remember that there are caring individuals out there who are going to do the hard work of offering protection to groups of people and organizations that need it over the next few years, even when they are going to need protection, too.

And then last night, we turned on SNL to watch Kate McKinnon sing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” as Hillary Clinton.  I started sobbing — just as I’m doing now, writing this — on her added stanza:

I did my best; it wasn’t much;
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch.
I’ve told the truth; I didn’t come to fool you.
And even though it all went wrong,
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.

I woke up the kids and brought them into our room to watch it a second time and told them that Mr. Roger’s “look for the helpers” advice rings true.  Look for the people who are supporting you and have your back.  Support them and have their back in return.  Gravitate towards those who are publicly, loudly, and clearly denouncing the swastika graffiti that has sprouted up across America this week — like on our local middle school — as well as the racist, homophobic, and misogynistic sentiments that have come from the mouth of our president-elect and his supporters.

They’re out there.  You just need to focus on those people in the larger crowd.

Thank you, Kate McKinnon.

President Obama has left us with a very important, lasting legacy: The ideology that when they go low, we go high.  Those weren’t just words for an election; they are a rallying cry that we need to put into place always.  Not just for the next two years until the mid-term elections.  Not just for the next four years as we endure the new administration.  Not just in politics.

We need to keep going high.

We need to keep facing racism and homophobia and antisemitism and misogyny and… well… this list is frighteningly long.  But we need to keep facing these lows and going high.

Our family will not be going anywhere.  We will be staying right here and continuing to fight the good fight so that we can actually keep America great since it’s pretty damn good as is.

*******

Though, of course, there are plenty of places beyond the isms that we can fix.

Two years from now:

• There are at least 33 Senate seats up for election.
• There are at least 435 House seats up for election.
• There are at least 36 governorships up for election.

Rather than joke about moving, stay and help love trump hate by getting out the vote in those elections.

*******

Week ago, my father slipped a Madam President magnet on my refrigerator, and it has been making me smile every time I made dinner.  Looking at it this morning made my heart hurt, but I’m not taking it down.  Clinton may not be our first woman president, but she — like Susan B Anthony and Shirley Chisholm — is a stepping stone toward that goal of assuring our daughters that they really can be anything.

So I’m leaving it up.  She’s staying.

This is not the post I thought I would write.  But in retrospect, especially after the Brexit vote, I’m not sure why I thought otherwise.

*******

The cold, grey rain outside matches the mood in the house.  We went to bed last night at 1 am.  We didn’t know the results until we woke up this morning.

I tried to explain what happened to the kids, but I failed, miserably.  Their fears are very concrete: What will happen to the marriages of gay family members?  What will happen to their Muslim friend?  Our fears are a lot more amorphous, and the only answer we’ve found is that we just don’t know.

I wish I had better words, but they’re really failing me this morning.