Pursuing inspiration

Productivity has been lacking this week in the writing department. It's final draft time for my thesis and after getting a head of schedule last week progress came close to stand still this week. It didn't help that I spent the last two days many miles away from my computer. I stole the husbands day off and employed him as a "volunteer" field assistant at my research site one day, doing the needed fall (and final) maintenance around my study plots. Spend the next (and significantly longer) day at my professors field sites doing that end of season maintenance. I thought today would move me forward, but it seems to be a day of delay, followed by interruption, then a dash of distraction, and a lab-mates thesis defense to round out the afternoon. Not a bad day, but I haven't been able to retreat to that place in my head that makes slogging through another chapter of my thesis a desirable prospect. In pursuit of writing inspiration I cracked open my field notebook and found the passage I wrote so many months ago after long work days spend in only my own company. It's not too bad considering the funny mental state I always get in after that much exhaustion and isolation:

Machete Therapy - Mower broke after about an hour work, so I spent the next 5 or so swinging the machete. It reminds me of a hard up hill backpacking trip. After the first few minutes the pain and difficulty make you think the task is impossible. Then your body melts into the movement, and all is fluid and possible. There were uplifted moments when I thought the task seemed at hand and then....

It really is a vile plant, this weed of mine. Oh to live to see it's pestilent form wiped from the landscape. It makes me question all the truths I've learned in ecology. Surely there can be no balance with this plant, no divine purpose for its existence. There is no ecology I can imagine where its presence would be welcome. And yet I toil in its shadow like a slave to it's robust but chaste nature. A wasteful contradictory plant that makes slaves of man, strips utility from the soil, and defaces the landscape with it's domineering monoculture. What an evil, conniving plant, this weed of mine.

I suppose it's as close to a motivational speech as I'm gonna find this late on a friday afternoon.....

Pasteur's insight

Listening to the Science Friday podcast this morning I was drawn to a Louis Pasteur quote: 

"Chance favors the prepared mind."

Ira quoted Pasteur when introducing a story on recent amazing observation of the early stages of a supernova.  What a fantastic description of how most great scientific discoveries occur.  We train ourselves, believe in our instinct, and use science to discover the why behind our luck.  What a brilliant man Pasteur was.

Finding inspiration in an eppendorf tube

I finally feel like I did more than just go through the motions today.  In the end I even feel a little inspired.  I spent all my free time between and after classes re-learning how to run a PCR and subsequently running a few this evening.  

In the past I've always thought of the molecular work as a slightly amusing but extremely informative part of my research, but that all the fun stuff happens in the greenhouse and fieldwork.  But today I found the little joy and motivation in the molecular work that I had been seeking all week in the greenhouse.  

I've been thinking that the rhythmic lab work can be somehow soothing and regenerative.  Sort of like the rhythm of rocking in a rocking-chair. Changing pipet tips, drawing-up buffers, dispensing to tubes, and repeating the process.  It must be true that it's the little things in life that bring you joy.

Going through the motions

Lately it has felt  like the wind is out of my sails.  I'm still here, working same hours, appearing to put in the same effort, and still getting acceptable results, but I feel like I just don't have the same passion behind it.  I almost feel like a cubicle monkey today, which is very unusual for me.  I can usually find inspiration in the academic lifestyle, but lately I just can't seem to find the motivation to push beyond the merely acceptable.  I keep going through the motions hoping something will click into place but so far nothing has worked.  I've tried spending extra time in the greenhouse the last few days hoping the positive energy of the green plants would do the trick but today I'm stuck again without feeling the inspiration needed to make something exceptional happen.

The Scientists' Mantra

I've been thinking about mantras lately.

Something to say to myself when I need that extra push.  Something inspirational, motivational, something that helps me to focus.  Not being in a recovery program, not ascribing to a particular religious view, and being moderately poor at yoga, I don't know any mantras.  So, I did what any laptop dependent adult would do in my place, I googled it.  More specifically I googled the scientists' mantra, thinking I'd find a inspiring message floating about in cyberspace. Unfortunately we scientist apparently are rather uninventive when it comes to such things.  The motley crew of mantras that I found follow:

Scientists need freedom in pursuing their research.

-Well true, but I find this rather lacking in inspiration and motivation.

First learn what others have done.

-A good message, an especially important one for us young scientists venturing in to new territory, but still not very mantra-like.

Anything that can be measured by statistics or quantified is by definition the right way to do things. 

-Well, I'm fairly sure this was meant to be insulting to scientists.

More research is needed.

-Very Blah.

There is value in basic research.

-Hmmm, better.  Could be especially good if you thought your research was rather rudimentary in comparison to others work., but still no winner.

Discover, develop, deliver.

-Would appear to be a commercial catch phrase, which by definition eliminates it from mantrahood.

Science for scientists.

-I really hate this one, "Science for all" would be much better.

A scientist is an objective observer and interpreter.

-Now, this one has potential, still doesn't have that powerful mantra-feeling, but it's definitely growing on me. 

And that leaves me still searching for that inspirational, motivational scientists' mantra.  Hmmm, something about the value of our work, and changing the world..... I'm working on it.