It was a perfect Fall Sunday on the trail years ago, and I remember very clearly bumping into husband-and-wife colleagues. They were much older, on the verge of formal retirement. Chatting about the beautiful day, they told me, \u201cAfter this we\u2019re heading to the university. We decided to work every day. It keeps us happier.\u201d For me, as a young father just treading water in life with no free time at all, this sounded at least a little bit strange.
\n
\nBut now, with some free time on my hands, I know what they were talking about. It\u2019s the addictive joy of discovery. Any time we want. Ours for free.<\/p>\n
Oh wait, they actually pay us for this.<\/p>\n
Not long ago, a younger colleague with children told me, \u201cThere\u2019s always a \u2018channel\u2019 going in my mind, sifting the data, trying to connect the dots. Even when I\u2019m with the family. All the time.\u201d Another said, \u201cI\u2019m forgetting the little things my kids did when they were young, but I still remember every experiment.\u201d<\/p>\n
My instinct is that these folks are not neglectful parents, but I get it.<\/p>\n
I always have the channel going. Hey, it\u2019s better than any TV show.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s playing on this \u201cchannel\u201d is adventure, challenge, things unknown (to us), and admittedly some ambition and careerism.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s like watching a great documentary, filled with fascinating and important information, expertly narrated and clarified. Except you\u2019re the explorer, the cinematographer, the writer, and the narrator.<\/p>\n
Our super-power as scientists is the ability to think hard about something. To be relentless. To turn over every possible theory, check every assumption. To create a new theory when the old ones don\u2019t work. To prove it. To conjure up tests to distinguish among possibilities. To envision algorithms and procedures that make magic happen.<\/p>\n
We do this because we know there\u2019s an answer, there\u2019s a way. We just have to push hard enough to figure it out. We\u2019re detectives, hunters, trailblazers. We\u2019re creative every day.<\/p>\n
Maybe being driven to distraction makes us worse people and parents. But maybe we set an example of caring deeply about something, and with luck something that\u2019s useful. An example of being dedicated to knowledge. Of being at least a little uncynical.<\/p>\n
Happy new year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was a perfect Fall Sunday on the trail years ago, and I remember very clearly bumping into husband-and-wife colleagues. They were much older, on the verge of formal retirement. Chatting about the beautiful day, they told me, \u201cAfter this we\u2019re heading to the university. We decided to work every day. It keeps us happier.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-culture-integrity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/statisticalbiophysicsblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/statisticalbiophysicsblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/statisticalbiophysicsblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/statisticalbiophysicsblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/statisticalbiophysicsblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=532"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/statisticalbiophysicsblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":535,"href":"https:\/\/statisticalbiophysicsblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions\/535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/statisticalbiophysicsblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/statisticalbiophysicsblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/statisticalbiophysicsblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/statisticalbiophysicsblog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}