Watching an NYT documentary on "Slomo" - a 69-year-old guy who left a medical career to pursue his passion for skating. It reminds one of Bill Watterson's statement "having an enviable career is one thing, and being a happy person is another." Of course, it would be ideal to have both, but they are indeed separate. The guy seems to have found his happy place, even if people mistake him for a homeless guy.
It's hard not to turn it on myself and see what it means for me. For me, science is sometimes a passion, sometimes a job. I don't think Slomo would say that everyone who has a demanding job that requires a doctorate needs to abandon it and just skate around all day.
But we need to find ways to feed our souls with our science. I need to take a step back, amidst all my proposal submissions, and reassess: what matters to me?
What is it that really gets my heart racing about mechanical engineering?
- Fluid motion is beautiful aesthetically and challenging intellectually.
- Active turbulence. Interactions among the components.
- Finding an unexpected connection that I didn't see before.
- Using interesting physics to make something that is unambiguously good for humanity - like making drinking water more easily accessible.
- Using self-propelled particles to break through the barriers to effective treatment.
Today, I saw a news release saying that Hyundai had started to build flying cars that it expects to be zipping around cities by 2028. In 2020, my instinct is to say, "fat chance." But it could happen. I need to have the same forward-thinking attitude towards my science. As Bob Langer said, "make the discoveries of tomorrow." As Ron Adrian supposedly said, "do what everyone else is doing...5 years before they do it." Could chemokinesis be key?
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