Big words are scary and hard to understand. When you explain the world, already big and scary enough, with big words, I get confused. So don't explain to me some wondrous thing you saw with magical technology, and then ask me to fit it into my comprehension.
The mind is a little thing, and can only stretch so far and wrap itself around so much. So tell me of the simple things, in words I can understand. Don't explain things I dont understand with terms I understand even less. Spare me the prokaryotic apoptosis communism sociobiology determinism in development cell fate dualism altruism.. Spare me all of that. The world is confusing enough without them.
Explain to me instead the simple things.
Don't speak of long-term potentiation and how it affects love in mice. Tell me why I can break my heart over someone I don't care about. Everything in the universe may be a fractal, but tell me how your equations explain why people smile over flowers.
Tell me why the right rhythm in my earphones is all that is needed for the perfect three-mile run. Tell me why some days I just need a hug.
Tell me how a virus killing some bacteria and not others can explain why we do things for the greater common good. At the end of the day, remember that science and philosophy share the same roots- A love of wisdom, a desire for knowledge. And if your science and philosophy cannot increase the wisdom or knowledge of the audience you hope to impress, how does it help?
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Clueless!
I'm beginning to think the clueless undergrad doing research is an essential part of any grad student's learning process. Like the Sarah Palins of academia, they teach you to laugh at the things that should technically fill you with the most despair.
Most importantly, they are good reminders of exactly how stupid people can be, and why warnings like " May contain peanuts" are to be found on a pack of peanuts.
I've only encountered two specimens so far, and until now they have given me NO hope for the future of science. Or geography, for that matter. (All this enlightenment apart from completely messing up my work, of course.)
A few snippets -
"Sooo... Singapore... isnt that like a city in Thailand?" (This from a person whose greatest claim to fame is having seen the ACTUAL Mona Lisa. Don't ask her who the artist was.)
"The bottles of solutions in the autoclave? I put them in the drying oven... isn't that where you put things after sterilizing them?"
(Yes, exactly. I spent two hours making these solutions up and adjusting pH just so that you could dry them down to salt-encrusted films at the end of my ridiculously long Friday.)
Argh. I don't remember my generation ever being so collectively dumb, even in our teens. I'm as confused about these kids as they're clueless about common-sensical things- What happened to them?
Most importantly, they are good reminders of exactly how stupid people can be, and why warnings like " May contain peanuts" are to be found on a pack of peanuts.
I've only encountered two specimens so far, and until now they have given me NO hope for the future of science. Or geography, for that matter. (All this enlightenment apart from completely messing up my work, of course.)
A few snippets -
"Sooo... Singapore... isnt that like a city in Thailand?" (This from a person whose greatest claim to fame is having seen the ACTUAL Mona Lisa. Don't ask her who the artist was.)
"The bottles of solutions in the autoclave? I put them in the drying oven... isn't that where you put things after sterilizing them?"
(Yes, exactly. I spent two hours making these solutions up and adjusting pH just so that you could dry them down to salt-encrusted films at the end of my ridiculously long Friday.)
Argh. I don't remember my generation ever being so collectively dumb, even in our teens. I'm as confused about these kids as they're clueless about common-sensical things- What happened to them?
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Fly like paper, get high like planes
Like India, it is a heady mix of color and big dreams and the dusty, filthy heart-breaking things one must do to achieve them. A simple enough story, that could happen in any country- Of a young boy who wants to win a pot of money, and hopes that his love will watch him on live television and come back to him.
It could be any boy, in any country. But like India, the film is the color of dusty streets and dhobi ghat, of clothes of many colors that fly with the wind like street children playing cricket on a runway. He takes off from the slums, running from righteous fire and a dying mother, selling trinkets on trains and having the time of his life.
Every tourist spot has people trying to make a fast buck, and the boy is no different. But Jamal is Indian, and his story wraps an emperor from a few centuries ago into a luxury hotel with a swimming pool, ties it all up into an elaborate, child-like scam, and presents it to you with an endearing smile. You could smile and give him a hundred bucks for the act, or you could rage at the inefficiency of the system that forces street children to steal the tires of a car.
A rare perspective- the 'foreign' viewpoint is obvious in the juxtaposition that runs throughout the film- insecticide sprayed at the railway stations as a boy runs through the poisonous mist to find the girl he left behind, and the people too poor to afford a television who crowd on the pavement to watch one man win a million. India runs through the story, as much a character to reckon with as Javedbhai and Manan.
The film pulses with unrelenting power in a city that really never sleeps, in a country that can ride on the dreams of one man and put bullets into a dozen others on its journey to the top. Unapologetic for its inadequacies, unmindful of the heartbreak it takes to make a dream happen - Like India, the film goes deeper than I can put into words, and every frame made me ache for home even as it transported me there. And I'm still high from Slumdog Millionaire.
It could be any boy, in any country. But like India, the film is the color of dusty streets and dhobi ghat, of clothes of many colors that fly with the wind like street children playing cricket on a runway. He takes off from the slums, running from righteous fire and a dying mother, selling trinkets on trains and having the time of his life.
Every tourist spot has people trying to make a fast buck, and the boy is no different. But Jamal is Indian, and his story wraps an emperor from a few centuries ago into a luxury hotel with a swimming pool, ties it all up into an elaborate, child-like scam, and presents it to you with an endearing smile. You could smile and give him a hundred bucks for the act, or you could rage at the inefficiency of the system that forces street children to steal the tires of a car.
A rare perspective- the 'foreign' viewpoint is obvious in the juxtaposition that runs throughout the film- insecticide sprayed at the railway stations as a boy runs through the poisonous mist to find the girl he left behind, and the people too poor to afford a television who crowd on the pavement to watch one man win a million. India runs through the story, as much a character to reckon with as Javedbhai and Manan.
The film pulses with unrelenting power in a city that really never sleeps, in a country that can ride on the dreams of one man and put bullets into a dozen others on its journey to the top. Unapologetic for its inadequacies, unmindful of the heartbreak it takes to make a dream happen - Like India, the film goes deeper than I can put into words, and every frame made me ache for home even as it transported me there. And I'm still high from Slumdog Millionaire.
Friday, January 09, 2009
Lunch-time mystery
I am currently reading a book with no context. A strange thing- I picked it up in the basement of a friend's house, he himself was unaware of how it got there. A simple green leather-bound book, with a title in gold letters. I've never heard of the book or the author, no biographical flap, no picture on the cover. The pages are a little yellowed, and its a second-hand book, but whether it was written in the 1980s or the turning of the previous century, I would not be able to tell.
The insides are equally strange- A story that tells of two borders to a country, and a war, and an excessively beautiful woman and a wounded soldier. An anonymous country, and I can find no obvious parallels to any of the historical wars that the story might be an allegory for. It's just some country, with some war. Unfamiliar terms in an old french are the only thing that have given the story any placement in time, and even those are uncertain holds on history.
The lack of context, geographic and temporal, is both in the story itself and in the way it ended up in my hands.
I could probably google the author and the book, and have all the answers in a few minutes. When faced with unfamiliar facts, thats usually where I begin (and several people would agree that I'm good at fishing out the obscure ;) ). But somehow, this book feels a little different. I carry it with me to the lab and read it at lunchtime,and every time I pick it up it is a little contact with the unknown.
A reminder in the middle of research and writing and constant analysis and the finding out of things, that we all need breaks to venture into the unknown, and not all questions need firm answers.
The insides are equally strange- A story that tells of two borders to a country, and a war, and an excessively beautiful woman and a wounded soldier. An anonymous country, and I can find no obvious parallels to any of the historical wars that the story might be an allegory for. It's just some country, with some war. Unfamiliar terms in an old french are the only thing that have given the story any placement in time, and even those are uncertain holds on history.
The lack of context, geographic and temporal, is both in the story itself and in the way it ended up in my hands.
I could probably google the author and the book, and have all the answers in a few minutes. When faced with unfamiliar facts, thats usually where I begin (and several people would agree that I'm good at fishing out the obscure ;) ). But somehow, this book feels a little different. I carry it with me to the lab and read it at lunchtime,and every time I pick it up it is a little contact with the unknown.
A reminder in the middle of research and writing and constant analysis and the finding out of things, that we all need breaks to venture into the unknown, and not all questions need firm answers.
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