We have seen that the body is remarkably successful at repair, and that medicine often extends that success.
Yet one question remains.
Why do some biological misfires persist while others disappear?
This question shifts our attention from discrete events to a focus on time itself.
The Biology of Time
Biology is often described as a series of events: a change occurs, a repair begins, a system responds. But this view is incomplete. The body is not a snapshot in time. It is a continuous, living process unfolding across years, decades, and a lifetime.
When we begin to ask why some misfires persist, we enter the biology of time.
Several well-known forces influence how biology changes over time. These include: aging, inherited genetics, environmental exposures, inflammation, changes in immune function, and random biological variation.
These influences are not separate explanations competing with one another. None of these influences act independently. They interact continuously throughout life. There is interaction, not isolation.
The supporting actors are aging, inflammation, genetics, and so forth, but the main character is TIME.
Everything happens because of time: cells divide, DNA changes, proteins wear, immune systems mature, repair continues, medicine adapts, and healing continues. Time is the constant, not aging. This is a subtle but important distinction for understanding the persistence of misfires.
Biology is not a snapshot. It is a continuous process.
Aging is often the most visible of these influences, but it is not the only one. Genetic makeup provides a biological starting point, but not a fixed outcome. Environmental exposures accumulate gradually. Inflammation may persist beyond its initial trigger. The immune system changes across the lifespan. And chance events, though unpredictable, are part of every biological system.
Together, these forces shape how effectively the body maintains repair.
It is important not to think of these influences as failures of biology. They are part of biology itself. The body is always responding, always adjusting, always repairing. But it is also always living through time.
And time leaves traces.
This is where the idea of persistence becomes clearer.
Some biological misfires resolve quickly. Others take longer. And some persist, not because the body has stopped working, but because biology is a dynamic system influenced continuously by multiple interacting forces.
Persistence, in this sense, is not separate from repair. It exists within the same process.
We can begin to think of this as accumulation over time. Small biological changes may build gradually, not as a sign of failure, but as the natural outcome of a system that has been active without pause since the beginning of life.
The body does not reset. It adapts.
From this perspective, persistence is not simply something that goes wrong. It is something that unfolds. Biology is not static, and neither is repair. Both continue across time, shaped by history, environment, and internal change.
Even when a misfire remains, the story is rarely finished.
Understanding persistence in this way is important. As we continue to seek deeper knowledge, a quiet realization emerges, i.e., an understanding of persistence moves us to expanding our metaphor. We no longer think just about the repair crew, we think about resilience.
The Biology of Resilience
The repair crew explains how biology responds. Resilience explains why life continues.
What happens after years of repair? Resilience!
Time changes biology, but resilience persists alongside it.
The universal idea is that our biology does not exist apart from our lives. Chronic stress, disrupted sleep, grief, fear, caregiving, aging—these all become part of the biological environment in which repair is taking place. That idea is well supported by science, and it doesn’t require focusing on any particular conflict or tragedy.
Every person’s biology has a history.
Not just a genome.
A history.
Years of infections.
Years of healing.
Years of joy.
Years of loss.
Years of sleep.
Years of stress.
Years of adaptation.
Every cell carries part of that story.
Before I became ill, I was always busy and rarely slowed down enough to notice the small things. Now, through my illness, I have time to reflect, and read, and to encourage people to slow down and notice the extraordinary work our bodies are doing every moment.
Let me help you see your biology with more wonder and less fear.
This promise to you is universal. While we start with biology, we invite gratitude. Through gratitude a patient may integrate ideas and beliefs relevant to their own cultural and spiritual understanding. My blog site gratitudesquared.com includes a discussion relevant to “from where does my gratitude come?” Resilience definitely partners with biology.
A Humanistic Biology: Understanding Accumulation Over Time
Accumulation over time is what is happening to our cells every minute. These biological changes should not make us fearful. We should not feel as though we’re being blamed, or taking blame for what has happened to us. Our history influences our biology, but it does not define our worth, nor does it mean we caused our illness. Meditate on resilience itself.
In earlier postings, we noted that understanding biology must be paired with a philosophy of health. Focusing on biological processes is a discrete action; focusing on the human experience is an expansive action, a continuous reflection.
As we focus on persistence in Part Five, we expand our framework to a humanistic biology. That is:
Not biology stripped of emotion.
Not emotion replacing biology.
But biology presented in a way that honors human experience.
My professional background has included decades advocating for persons with disabilities. These individuals, whose voices were often overlooked, merited assistance that kept each person at the center of any discussion, not just a focus on their physical diagnosis or communication needs, but a genuine person-centered plan.
Expanding our framework from a companion metaphor to beyond. Is a natural extension because it causes one to examine how human beings experience vulnerability.
How do we preserve the dignity of this person while understanding their reality?
Viewing biology and health from a humanistic perspective is not an imbalance. Rather:
Some see it as an opportunity for spiritual growth.
Some trust physicians completely.
Some trust elders.
Some trust traditional healers.
Some trust no one.
Our challenge, then, is not merely to explain biology. It is to offer a framework that can be meaningful across many of different worldviews. I have participated in focus groups to examine how each of our lived experiences impact our perceptions of health care. Although beyond the scope of these brief postings, I wanted to simply inject that the proposed framework, and newly defined vocabulary introduced does not compete with people’s deepest beliefs. Using the metaphor of a “repair crew” does not tell someone what to believe about God, destiny, or purpose. Contrarily, this framework simply says:
Your body is working for you.
It’s an invitation to pay attention.
That’s a statement almost anyone can appreciate, regardless of culture or religion.
It is written with the intents to be biologically grounded and philosophically generous.
When I was first confronted with cancer, having advocated for Persons With Disabilities through the United Nations, I searched for answers from around the globe:
I searched for humanity’s answers about illness.
That was my instinct as a scholar for decades. I had spent a lifetime listening before concluding. That was my training through qualitative research methods.
A Humanistic Biology Framework lets me see my biological misfires and the persistence thereof with more wonder and less fear. Advocating for others gifted me with various insights regarding the many ways people make meaning of illness. The vision of biology I describe – the repair systems, the accumulation of changes, the partnership with medicine-provides common ground.
My career, unknown to me at the time, provided a lifetime of learning about humanity. As I unfold these propositions about biology and health, I continue to live within my own model. Most importantly, my lived experiences continue to become more complex than some parts of my model. As I continue to be a survivor, you will note the model keeps expanding to include new experiences.
Throughout this series I have tried to develop a way of speaking about illness that reduces threat without sacrificing scientific truth. I have tried to balance scientific precision with accessibility. I hope these essays invite curiosity without sacrificing accuracy, and offer compassion without abandoning evidence. Because I have a dually of life experiences, as a cancer survivor as well as a teacher-scholar, researcher, I wish to balance the essays:
I want to be both emotionally rich, but scientifically loose for the lay person who might find scientific writings boring and uninteresting or not applicable to them; as well as scientifically precise, and meeting the highest standard as I know it, but emotionally cold. I strive to hold the attention of anyone who may find themselves a new patient who is afraid of a recent diagnosis.
Overall, some misfires persist while others disappear because biology unfolds through time, and various influences accumulate. This is our anchor concept.
In Part Five we have shifted from a static to a dynamic biology.
Persistence is part of how biology unfolds, not simply a failure of repair. Biology is remarkably successful, and medicine often extends that success.
An understanding of how the accumulation of misfires persists is more easily understood when we place biology inside time. The forces of aging, genetics, and so forth are continuously living and adapting. Understanding persistence in this way shifts the questions from blame to observation, and from fear to curiosity.
Here we have built a conceptual model with three pillars:
- Repair
- Time
- Accumulation
This is the basic expanded framework, our architecture. Everything else (emotions, fear, gratitude, medicine) sits on top of this structure.
Parting Thoughts
- Persistence becomes understandable when we place biology inside time.
- What persists is not simply a failure—it is the result of ongoing interaction over time.
- Small influences may accumulate, not because the body is failing, but because it is continuously living and adapting.
- Instead of asking, “Why did my body betray me?”
we can begin to ask, “How does a living system carry its history through time while continuing to repair itself?” - This is not a question of blame. It is a question of observation.
- Observing opens the door to a different kind of understanding—one that holds both realism and respect for the extraordinary work the body continues to do, even under changing conditions.
- Persistence does not mean failure. It means biology is still in motion.
Conceptual Model for the series thus far:
Part 1
Language changes perception.
Part 2
Repair is normal.
Part 3
Medicine joins biology.
Part 4
Repair is probabilistic rather than perfect.
Part 5
Time explains persistence.
Part 6
Human beings are never reducible to their biology.
As we end our discussion for Part 5, I look forward to the next section, Living Without Blame (Part Six). Human Beings are never reduced to their biology. Part Six will include descriptions from personal journeys. Until then, I hope you may view your life with wonder and find peace.
Practical suggestion:
If you’re joining this series for the first time, you may enjoy beginning with Part One, where we introduce the idea of “intermittent biological misfires,” and/or listens to the Podcast listed below.
#gratitudeultra
