Independence

There is a strange thing about independence, something intrinsically appealing about standing on your own two feet, that makes us all crave it. I'm not talking about independence from parents and teachers, or the right to make my own decisions; to be honest, I've never cared much about what I am allowed or not allowed to do in this respect. Rather, the independence that has enthralled me all my life is the independence of ability, knowing that you can do the things you want to do with minimal input from others. When I first truly discovered this independence in learning, it was one of the most exciting moments I can remember. An unfettered burst of productivity followed, and lasted perhaps a good two years before the excitement began to fade and laziness overcame me. In the intervening years, I tried in vain to recreate this emotion, to excite myself to action. This summer I finally succeeded.

Early in high school, I found it that while it was easy to learn theory, be it math, physics, chemistry, or biology, it was also fairly straightforward to manipulate the theory in different ways to discover ideas that, while perhaps not new, were certainly interesting enough to keep you thinking. You all know what I'm talking about with math and physics, and admittedly, I wasn't as surprised that such manipulations could be performed in the these two domains. But theoretical biology, as it were, grabbed me early, and despite years of effort on the part of you, my closest friends, I didn't let go. Every time I despaired of some unsatisfactory aspect of my experience with the subject, someone would come along to argue with me about the possible nature of a certain disease, or different ways to approach a clinical problem, and my interest would be revived once again.

I never really liked experimental biology though. It seemed to consist of following detailed procedures that I never fully understood in order to perform manipulations that seemed fairly simple to me. At the time I thought that my discomfort was a result of those unknown details which I suspected were uninteresting. Despite this hindrance, I had resolved to cultivate the ability to perform at least the standard set of experimental procedures in order to conduct my own work, and so I insisted on learning these techniques that I thought I despised.

I found out this summer that this wasn't the problem at all. I was treating experimental biology as if it couldn't be decomposed in theoretical terms, but of course this was bogus. The truth, then, was that I had never seriously considered measurement when I thought about biology. Once I realized this, I attempted to remedy my error. I found that it was not so difficult, and this revelation has made all the difference in the world. Now, when I think of a project I would like to conduct, I can readily examine what I can actually measure, and if there is some small piece of information that I am lacking that is not easily accessible, I can simply design an experiment to pull out that information for myself. In short, I am ready to treat biological problems in the same way I have been treating math and physics problems throughout high school: without apprehension.

My intention here had actually been to describe my research this summer, and this had been meant to merely preface that. However, it would seem to merit its own post, and so you can expect a post on research and other summer happenings tonight or tomorrow morning.

~jnub