Lost pt 2

Novak is a Bohemian name meaning "New Man" or "New-Comer." Bohemia is "the home of the Boi," encompassing a large portion of the modern Czech republic, including Prague. Bohemia appears to have been settled when the Romans drove the Boi out of Northern Italy in the 2nd Century BCE. The Boi appear to have been a large Celtic nation, the name meaning variously "cow-herder" or "warrior." It is likely they were ancient cowboys depending on agriculture and warfare to survive.

They may be related to the Boetians of early Greece.

So, the Novaks are "New-Comers" from an ancient race of wandering Celtic cowboy warriors with ties to the early Greek civilization. Wild.  This much I know: not one generation of Novaks that I am aware of (in my family tree) has remained in the place they were born. We are perpetual new-comers. Strangers.

It is highly likely that the Novak name became so widespread - it is the virtual "Smith" of Bohemia - due to the Christianizing of Central Europe. As previously pagan peoples were converted to Christianity, they were made "New Men" having been "reborn in Christ."

Either way, the name carries a story. A story of constant motion and newness. A narrative in which it is easy to feel lost, or at the very least, far from home. Non-indigenous. An invasive species.

So I'm lying in bed with a toothache and this is what is going through my mind: dissolution and invasion. The discovery that my pain was due to resorption made the conflict internal: I was at war with myself.

I could practically hear my body arguing with itself: the tooth attacked by the mouth, the belly angry with the mouth, the limbs impatient with the belly, the mouth, and the tooth.

It was like the old parable: the limbs go to war against the belly, thinking it lazy and greedy, getting all the goodies while they do all the hard work. Finally the entire body begins to starve and must learn to appreciate the different functions and responsibilities each has for the survival of the whole.

[The parable has long been used to describe the socio-political functions of the state - the "body politic."]

So my dissolution continued down to the microscopic level as I realized that my "body politic" was like the early Greece of the Boetians: a loose coalition of independent city-states.

Then I made a disturbing discovery: My body's coalition included a vast nation of non-indigenous micro-organisms. In fact, they were the majority.

There are 10x as many micro-organisms in the human body as there are human cells.

So who am I anyway?

continue to "Lost Pt. 3"