today

Να ξημέρωνε μια μέρα

Μια γιορτή, μια Πασχαλιά
Όλοι να 'ταν εδώ πέρα
Κι εγώ να 'λειπα μακριά

Να γλεντάνε, να γελάνε
Και να πίνουν στην υγειά
Τη δική τους, τη δική μου
Κι όσων λείπουνε μακριά
Τη δική τους, τη δική μου
Κι όσων λείπουνε μακριά

Να ξημέρωνε μια μέρα
Μια καλή Πρωτοχρονιά
Όλοι να 'ταν εδώ πέρα
Κι εγώ νά 'λειπα μακριά

Να τους λείπω, να μου λείπουν
Να με σκέφτονται συχνά
Και τρελά ν' αγαπηθούμε
Μέχρι να τους δω ξανά
Και τρελά ν' αγαπηθούμε
Μέχρι να τους δω ξανά.

Μιχάλης Γκανάς
"Να ξημέρωνε μια μέρα"

steroids for researchers

Since last Friday, I have been trying to follow the Olympics as much as work and time difference permits me. I do it not so much because I enjoy watching archery or cycling but because the flat is so empty that even TV is a good company and -lets face it- any kind of sport is still better than the usual crap of Spanish TV. Over the last four days, I could not help noticing the ability with which swimmers of any nationality, sex or race have been beating olympic and world records, sometimes by three or more seconds. I cannot but be surprised by these athletes who beat opponents, time and their own selves once or twice a day.

I wonder if I could ever be like them, if I could ever become that good at what I do -or pretend to be doing. I quickly realize that I never will. And right after that, I realize that I would never want to. Competition is not my forte, I never found myself comfortable with struggling to be the best in something and even if sometimes I get merit for stuff I do, I fully realize it is mostly based on considerable luck and some residual talent (which is also part of being lucky). You -and by this I would like to have been talking mostly to my bosses- have to believe me. I honestly don't intend to be the best at what I do. Correction: I don't intend to be good at what I do. And by "intend" I don't mean I would not like to. It's just that I am not the least determined to work for it. I believe in luck and talent. If you have it you should not be needing steroids or effort. I don't have it -as most of the people- and since there are no steroids for researchers any effort to convert me into a high-class scientist would be futile. I therefore have to warn you. Do not count on me. My aspirations were fulfilled upon becoming a mediocre doctor of sciences.

Besides joking now, I would like to be good at many things. I want to be a good friend, perhaps someday a good father, I hope I made it through being a good son and who would not like to be a good lover? (if only!) I would like to be a good laugh on Saturday nights out or a good football fun. Once they asked Borges why he would never take up writing a big novel to which his answer was that the world had enough of good writers but was in dire need of good readers. He therefore preferred to read instead. I would also like to be a good reader. And I think I could be really good at it if only work would let me.

Human nature dictates that we aspire merit, recognition and fame. It is all connected to our honest appreciation of what is really beautiful. I grew up admiring great writers, thinkers, footballers and trumpet players. I grew up a bit more and wrote a couple of stuff that made me feel nice, made thinking a profession that pays the rent, played football for the school team and have fun while blowing a trumpet every now and then. At the side of all that, I did not forget to simply grew up. I simply grew up to accept the fact that Maradona, Wynton Marsalis, Castoriades, Einstein and Borges are to be admired because they are out of reach. Geniouses that lie at the edge of the bell curve that are mediocrities define. And I have grown up to know it's not bad to be mediocre. What is bad is not being at peace with yourself by accepting it.

I was making these thoughts and then Mike Phelps came to break one more world record.

fake empire

Posting is like reading books. The longer the abstinence, the greater the difficulty to resume. After a hard end of July and a great beginning of August, I find putting my thoughts in a post as hard as going back to work. Or perhaps even more, since this post comes almost a week after I came back from a great trip in Andalucia and with my "professionally-amateur" working obligations at full pace.

One might think that a long-awaited trip, with "long-time-no-seen" friends would bring back some strength to resume work. Especially somewhere between an empty flat and a half-empty lab. Well, at least I did thought so. But I was wrong.

Over the last week, I have worked my ass ("arse" Colin would have corrected me) off with the scarcest results and experienced days which achieved peaks of unprecedented futility (like last Friday's quest for a periodical pattern in some stupid cancer cells' nucleosomes, but I am sure none of you cares, why should you anyway?). The key however is not there. The key is in the fact that somehow I seem to have lost any joy in the way we (or I) work, or perhaps I am only realizing the fat that I am incapable of working as "we" and can only work as "I". It's not necessarily a bad thing, I just have to keep it as my little secret when future, "aspiring" employers of mine ask me whether I am prone to "work in a group".

The problem in this case is that this group work consists mostly of having to deal with sometimes superficial, often absurd and almost always frustratingly boring orders of my bosses, whose vision of science I start to realize that I am not sharing at all. I found myself, a distinguished citizen of a fake empire whose pillars I am responsible to built and maintain. Numbers don't add up, models fail, all orders of statistical moments have united against me, my plots' curves assume irritatingly mocking grins. On top of all that, I have to make them all look good. That is the very essence of the fake empire. Here, results are discussed before the experiment is designed, the papers written before the analysis. In the fake empire, there is no time to think. Science is like riding a bike, they say. If you stop moving, you fall.

And should my empire decline and fall, I shall fall within it. What really worries me though, is that the thought of it does not sadden me one little bit.