Monthly Archives: August 2017

The Mediocre Scientist

On The Serious Side, Science

I will be attending an international conference next week, where I will be presenting an invited talk. Nothing earth-shattering about it; as I am a scientist by profession, I am expected to attend scientific conferences to network with other nerds fellow colleagues and present my bit of knowledge, and whether the said knowledge will have a measurable impact on the society at large, well, who’s to judge? While this activity in itself is not necessarily an accomplishment, it will be summarily included as an additional entry in my CV.

“A Highfalutin Title with Ambiguous Results,” Presented at the International Conference of My Field, known only to those in the field, unknown to the rest of the world.

In this particular conference, there will be plenary talks to be delivered by Nobel laureates and other academic luminaries who in one way or the other have made this world a better place through their relentless pursuit of knowledge. As to be expected, their brief bios are mind-blowing: 500+ or 1000+ papers published, held various positions so-and-so, and multiple awards from award-giving bodies which I am mostly unfamiliar with (and this is obviously because I am not from that class of scientists).

Which got me into thinking, I can only consider a handful of people I know who I would consider as scientific “celebrities” of sorts. Myself, and indeed most of the people I meet and interact with at conferences have accomplishments which are nowhere near those of the plenary speakers.

We’re the mediocre scientists. We publish, attend conferences, apply for grants, churn out a string of reports to justify the use of public money. If we get lucky, perhaps one of us may even stumble upon a major discovery that will actually change the world.

One of the pitfalls in the academia today is evaluating how good scientists are by the number of their publications, how high the “impact factor” of the journals they get published in. I don’t think it’s that easy to evaluate the quality of science; I think the ultimate test is how our lives and those around us can be changed for the better through science.

We can’t all be celebrity scientists, but I would like to believe that we all share the same goal.

Free

Uncategorized

You hear that sound? Shh…hush and you’ll hear it. That’s the merry little sound that my soul is singing nowadays.

Because I’m free.

It has taken me almost ten years to finally reach a stage where I just couldn’t take it anymore. The enormous amount of crap posted by people online, the obviously deliberate crafting of one’s online image, the lack of control over the kind of content I see on my news feed.

Enough.

I have contemplated deactivating/deleting my account for years, and to be honest, once I actually did it. But at that time, it had not been possible to use the messenger function without reactivating one’s account, so I begrudgingly reactivated my account. I still wanted to stay in touch, and wanted to keep my communication lines open. Of course, that’s total bullshit, because it was only a matter of time before I got back to the usual mindless task of scrolling down my news feed. And before I knew it, I was back to my usual routine.

Well, now it has become possible to still use the messenger app without having to reactivate your account. Yes! Whoever thought of this was a genius.

I have nothing against people who derive satisfaction on spending their precious time on social media. But as for me, I could only look back with regret on all the hours I have spent on it, hours that I could have used for something else.

Like learning how to cook a new dish, learning to play a new musical instrument, reading a new book, working out, getting back to my love of photography, being creative in entirely new ways. Heck, even reviving my blog!

I could only look back with regret at the hours I spent over the years. Even 30 minutes a day amounts to a huge amount of time over years. Imagine what I could have done with those hours. Regrets are made.

It may not mean much, and my absence is likely to go unnoticed by most except a few close friends and family. But then it’s not for their benefit that I am checking out. It’s mine, and mine alone.

Checking out, ladies and gents, and in passing let me just say:

May your lives be as fabulous as you make it seem on Facebook.