I've been trained as a scientist. I grew up with a father who is a physicist and a mother who is a psychologist - both earned their Ph.D.s in the subjects. My mother is a clinical psychologist, so she does not really think of herself as a scientist, per se, but clearly has the capacity to perform science and interpret it. They were my foundation in this early life and from that, I believe, came my insatiable curiosity. Yes, insatiable. All the science in the world cannot satiate it, but religions made a mockery of it, too.
I realized the other day that I'm angry at my decisions in life that have led me to this place that I am in - a career that consistently feels alien and alienated from the parts of me that have brought me so much joy in my former existence (as a child). I've been holding onto this anger as part of the necessary process - aren't all scientists angry that they have to do this shit day in and day out? That most of the time their experiments don't pan out the way they thought they would? That technical difficulties hamper most of what they do and once they get over that, they run out of time/money to really do anything fun and interesting with it? Then they have to write it up even though the story is so small, with so many holes that they have to pretend the holes are fewer and further between than they really are so they can hopefully publish it, so they can hopefully show that they've been productive and hopefully be able to get a grant so that they can live another year doing this same shit over and over again?
I'm depressed about it, too. I decided to stay home from work, using the excuse that I wasn't feeling well yesterday but still dragged myself in to work so I could take some pictures of slides I made so I can write up a report. I have another report to write, so I figure I can do that at home where I don't feel like stabbing my eyes out every other minute. I feel like I cannot breathe when I'm there. I'm living a lie there.
Then I feel badly because I know I'm privileged to be able to do science, to be able to have had the education to get me where I am - and I'm not enjoying it. I feel badly because I don't deserve to be here if I don't want to be here and someone else who may want to be here may not be able to for reasons having nothing to do with whether or not they have the qualifications. I feel guilty.
Maybe, also, I'm scared to change. I know there is a part of me that has wanted this, at least to enough extent that I made it this far - I've been pursuing a scientific career for over 12 years now, not including college. Everyone (other scientists) says that if you step out, you essentially cannot step back in. The competition is too fierce - it is even if you never step out. But slowly, over the years, I think that part of me that thinks I might change my mind again and want back in is coming to the conclusion that it's not likely to happen - only that I might be scared to have to worry more about money again. But I worry about money now, anyway. I've always been bad with money - I also learned that from my parents.
We believe science will save us from everything - just as we used to believe religion could. We've just changed belief systems, but still don't recognize the problem: no one/thing can save any other one/thing from anything. We either save ourselves or we don't get saved. That's the bottom line. I mean, I'd even say that sometimes a blieve in something greater than ourselves helps save ourselves (like science, the universe, God, etc.), but I think that's just us allowing ourselves to save ourselves. What do we need to save ourselves from? Ourselves. We put rules down to follow, we set up obstacles in front of ourselves that divert our paths - but we never believe it is ourselves that are doing it - we think it's someone else. But then one day we wake up and find ourselves in a place we never thought we'd ever find ourselves and we wonder - how did I get here? What happened?
Then we have to backtrack - what were the steps that we took that led us here? And we find...that each and every step was our own decision, usually between a known and unknown and we usually took the known out of fear of the unknown. I'm afraid of the unknown. It's true. I think we all are and some of us admit it while others do not. It's scarier to not even know what you feel. In any case, that's not a huge problem of mine, although it is something that I recognize is not a given, either (to know how I feel) - it's something one must often work to figure out. There are layers of truth under the surface of truth. That doesn't make them untrue - it just gives those truths more depth. In any case, I've followed the known path out of fear of the unknown and now I've come to that place where I wonder how, why, where, what am I doing here? I'm miserable here. And finally I've decided that the unknown cannot be nearly as frightful as the misery of remaining in the known just because it's known.
In making a change - a huge change - I am facing the fear of the unknown. Breaking it down into its component parts and addressing them - let's go from unknown to known. Or at least address each part that is unknown and demystifying it so that I can see myself knowing it.
I'm not a scientist at heart - I've always said that I'm an artist/musician at heart. I want out of science. It doesn't mean I'm not curious or intelligent or that I'm wasting my intellect. It doesn't mean I hate science or that I am throwing it all away. It only means that my true self wants to come out and live a little more than it has been able to in the past 15-20 years. It doesn't mean I made a mistake - I think there were good reasons for why I did what I did, possibly very profound reasons, in fact. So it's ok. It's ok to walk away and never come back. It's ok to walk away and look back or even wander back ever now and then, too. I cannot let other people's fears become my own. They do not know what it's like to be me. And I do not know what it's like to be them. It's all good in the end because we are of the same essence and we will know all of it in the end (my belief).
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