I'm not sure about that sub-title. I like sub-titles, though. It's another layer of meaning. Especially since "thread-tail" doesn't really tell you anything at all about what this blog is about.
But, really? It's a little vague, and a little presumptuous perhaps.
I really do want to think about the role of creative thinking in the sciences, though, and the connections that can be made between science and the arts. And I want to do more in translating science in the arts, than using some kind of technology to produce art.
The other link between these two fields, in my life: I can't deny that I have had a hard time figuring out which direction to take career-wise, and kept trying to bin myself into one camp or another. I am definitely a flaky, spacey, dreamy, impractical, attention-span-of-a-flea artsy type person. But then again I can be cool, cerebral, pensive, moody, dark, quiet, and downright analytical about every aspect of my life. Again, who am I?
Why have I chosen to go with science again? I can't stand having to answer phones 8-5, sit at a desk, and do mundane tasks. OK they weren't always mundane. But they weren't my projects or ideas that were being explored. That was the kicker I guess. If I'm going to occupy 40+ hours of my week on rote tasks, then at least, let me be the one to dream them up! For example, picking up near-microscopic freshly-hatched caterpillars from
petri dishes and brushing them EVER SO gently upon the branches of their host plant, so they can proceed to eat eat eat and grow up big 'n strong (or not). Do that, every day, for 4-5 months. Also clean up their poop and give them more to eat. DOES THE FUN NEVER END???
So, I wanted to go back to science, so that I could set my own schedule, ask questions I am interested in, and get to work building a career out of it. If I have to clean up a little bug poop now and then, so be it.
The other part of it is, I really love being a student. I love learning, listening, reading, writing, the whole bit. I love tests, as a way to prove to myself that I can remember shit. It's very important to me. It's also like a game, and a puzzle. I like to solve things, and pretend that I'm clever. Learning Japanese was like this for me. What a puzzle a foreign language is!!!
But where does this leave the artsy person that also is me? Pretty damn frustrated... where is the balance, I have to find the balance...
The danger I have to look out for, is I don't want to ever feel stifled in my scientific pursuits. Science requires objectivity, data, hard lines. I'm not a hard-line kind of person. I like wavy lines, or broken lines, or when you use the side of your pencil to make a broad stroke, kind of lines. So if I start to feel boxed-in, or cornered, is when I have to be careful. I will be either passive-
aggressive, lazy, or worse, just up and quit. I can't do that. Anyone who reads this and knows me-- please give me a good swift kick in the ass if I start exhibiting signs of flaking out.
But the more I get into the work I'm doing, the more opportunities I see to get creative (not in a scientifically suspect kind of way) but in research design, or thinking of your question, and the many different ways you can approach getting to an answer...
All in all I'm very (happy) (content) (pleased) with where I am. I try to dutifully not take anything for granted. I try to keep my artsy side happy. Time for one more glass of wine...
... not sure where I am going with the title of this post. I'm trying to not over-edit or over-think how I write. Something that I was thinking about earlier: naming my fears. I live with a kind of low-level but fairly constant amount of anxiety. I worry. It's what I do. I think it's just enemy awareness, not letting your guard down, ready for a predator to swoop down at any moment. Fight or flight? Fight! And yet, the anxiety is there. What worries you so? Fear of... failing, forgetting, hurting, slighting, embarrassment, mistakes, coming up short.
