[Villages PL]

This might be fun and/or interesting to think about. I started thinking about this after listening to Bud Hedinger on the radio. He said that life begins at conception and compared it to his morning trip to work. He said his trip begins when his car first starts moving, not 1/4 or 1/2 way there. There's no place along the way where you can draw a line and say, "it starts here". It always starts at the beginning. Okay, I thought, that makes sense to me.

However, if that's true, I began to wonder what else that logic could be applied to. For example: How about our journey to the end of life. Where does that begin? When do you start getting old and ready to die? Using the above logic, I think we would have to say it begins at conception. Sometimes fetuses are stillborn, sometimes children die in their first year of life. And people can die anywhere along the journey of life.

How about alcoholism and liver disease: Doesn't it start with the first drink?

How about smoking, lung disease and heart disease: Doesn't it start with the first puff on a cigarette?

How about obesity: Does it begin at conception if the mother eats a lot of high calorie junk food during pregnancy? Does it start when the child is first introduced to processed foods? This one is difficult.

And what about so many other diseases like osteoporosis etc.. Where do they start? In most cases, I believe the seeds are sown long before a person gets any symptoms. It starts at the beginning, wherever that is.