On another birthday

Its been a long while... hello everyone! Life has marched on relentlessly, with loss, wins, and heartbreak. Today, I could talk about the many things that have happened - from my San Francisco marathon, to the intense classes I took last quarter, to losing DK, but I figured I'm not up for it.

My good friend J playing with his band.

Today, I wanted to talk about the feelings a quote by Jean Paul Sartre evoked - something that I noticed at the bar which I was at this Saturday, where my good friend J and his band were playing -

"We do not know what we want, yet we are responsible for what we are. "

I have a high suspicion the guy who scribed it on the grimy walls of the dive bar was most likely high or drunk or a combination of both, but it did get me thinking - as I turn 22 - what is it that I want to get out of in the next year or so and where am I?

It's easy to say that I want a couple Nature or Science papers, and I want to be on a path to writing a good thesis - but the fact of the matter is - I am not personally there yet - I am not a good enough scientist, I haven't read enough papers, I haven't done nearly enough experiments; I have come a significant way from my undergrad researcher days, but I have a long way to go (and I am OK with that).

My advisor, M, often tells me that the day when your PhD starts to feel like hell, and when the days and weeks stretch into lonely months - thats the real PhD journey. Theres a reason why PhDs are called a marathon - the same wall that marathoners run into deep into the race, exists within the PhD as well.

To break the wall, it suffices to take one step at a time, and keep moving forward. In a PhD, it suffices to show up to lab everyday, and take a small step forward. Interestingly enough, I can see the wall in the horizon - part of me wants to hurtle at light-speed to get there and start hammering away at it, and another part of me wants to slow down and gather reinforcements so that we can chip away at the wall together.

The truth is, I don't know what I want - but I know who I am.

In the deep of my heart, I know that I won't ever be satisfied unless I have given it my all - until theres nothing left of me to give, I plan to keep hurtling forward - because when there is nothing to be fighting for - thats unbearable. For example, when the days are long, and stretch into nights in the basement - and the pressure of experiments, deadlines, and grants grind into one another - thats when I feel the most alive.

Milan Kundera wrote an entire book - the Unbearable Lightness of Being on this concept- funny enough that it only starting to make sense now. Since there is only one life that we have and share, meaning only comes from the weights that we choose to put on and carry, otherwise we are nothing.