Those who know me know that this is definitely a valid question and/or discussion. For someone who spent 10 years as an athlete in multiple sports, spent 15+ years as a musician, has a degree in politics, and who has embarked on a nearly infinite number of other, different paths, one might legitimately ask; what it is about science that "stuck"? I'm glad you asked! Instead of explaining why I chose science over every other thing I've ever been interested in, I will instead just use a few examples from my life that I spent the most time pursuing and then I think you will get the underlying logic that applies to other examples. Or if you don't then I haven't accomplished my goal here and I will undoubtedly need a sequel or need to do some serious editing!
Why I chose science over sports
I will readily admit that this argument is a little weaker in the logic department but is really more of a personal reason. I believe that the true nature of sports is not personal accomplishments for the individual, but inspiration for everyone else in the world but the athlete. Any athlete that knows any history about their sport knows that records are only established to be broken. I hate psychology (soft science) but I am quite confident in stating that we record achievements in sports so at some later time we can surpass these benchmarks and believe that we are improving as a collective species. No matter how fast you can cover a distance of 400 meters on foot, how far you can throw a chunk of lead without your arm going with it, or how many golden cylindrical discs you win at a big meeting of athletes and sports enthusiasts, I can almost guarantee you, at some point, someone will one-up you. For all those athletes out there that this is the first time they are hearing this, I'm sorry to be the one to break the bad news. But there is a gray lining.
As I said, I don't believe that the importance of sports lies in the current recorded feats. It lies in the inspiration that these incredibly talented and dedicated people give to the rest of us. When someone is having a hard time dredging through 8 hours of waiting tables, or operating a machine that makes EasyMac (I love you Chris!), or whatever ungodly task you are set to for your daily acquisition of resources, just knowing that the human body is capable of so much more can really help put your life in perspective. Knowing that Samuel Wanjiru can run 26.2 miles in just 2 hours, 6 minutes, and 32 seconds makes me feel as if though 8 hours of contract administration (sitting on my ass) and 5 hours of math and science night classes really isn't that brutal. Especially when you take into account the thousands and thousands of miles that Samuel had to run in order to prepare himself for this incredible feat. However, I was not in sports for this reason. I was in the sport for personal acheivements and other personal reasons. Admittedly, I am not a great big-picture person. I would offer from experience that those involved in sports for these reasons will probably not last. Drawing your strength from a single source (yourself) just can never achieve the same result as drawing your strength from the entire world. I believe sports are important (this may surprise those who know me, especially because I do not often follow many sports) but I could not distinguish from personal motivations to why sports are really important, and, alas, it did not last.
Why I chose science over music and arts
The logic is a little more substantial here. I suppose this is to be expected since I have had much more experience with arts and music than anything else in my life. The importance of the arts is once again not so much in personal accomplishments, at least not the way it is dealt with in this context. The importance of arts is the inspiration and effects that the artist has on its audience. The right artist, with the right exposure, has the chance to change the world and the way people see it. However, this is very infrequently the case. One only has to do a little browsing on Wikipedia to realize how many bands there have been that have never really done anything but entertain people for an hour or two at a time and how few bands have really made an impact like, say, the Beatles (feel free to pronounce "the Beatles" in your head in some funny European accent, I do).
The more common use of music and art is simply entertainment, which I do believe is important. However, I feel that it is important to distinguish that I am not saying that any of these pursuits like athletics, arts, or politics are not on some level important, but just that I regard them with less overall greater importance than I do science. Arts, to me, are like a drug (another area where I unfortunately have a little too much expertise). When you are high (experiencing the art, the culmination of the artist's work) you are whisked away to a world where your problems are not as important, if they still exist in your conscious mind at all. When I listen to Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap, for 4 minutes and 22 seconds my problems do not exist. Patterns are not being run through the algorithms in my brain. Pressing problems are not being attacked by my logical conscious mind. I am not concerned about my daily whining. I am free. Just like when I am running, playing music, or being a drunkard.
However, like being high on drugs, at 4 minutes and 23 seconds of Hide and Seek (or at some point), the high is over. I am no longer free, and, in fact, I am now further from where I need to be than when I started. This I where I think the arts are sort of weak in their overall intrinsic value. For a while you feel better, but then when you come back to reality the same problems are still there biting you and have often even compounded while you were escaping them. You might have forgotten about your bills for a few hours while you were smoking weed and eating Funyuns but when you come back down they are still there, often with late fees if my stoner friends are any indication. This is not to say asprin, music, movies, and booze don't have their function in a well moderated life but it is to say that I do not think they can hold a candle to science. Science can be just as enjoyable and gratifying as watching a good movie, and when the credits roll on our experiment we are one step closer to a cure for cancer. Or we are one step closer to curing alzheimers. Or we are one step closer to understanding ourselves. Arts make you feel better for a little while but science actually makes us better, more often than not, forever.
Why I chose science over politics
After getting my undergraduate degree in Urban Studies (basically a catch all, urban politics degree) from a Big 10 University I seemed poised to skip, hop, and jump onto graduate school, maybe get my PhD., and get a lucrative job as a planner or city council member at some big, shiny city hall in some big urban city. I said poised. The problem was, I was drowning in politics. After spending some time with friends that had hard science degrees, I realized that I hadn't really learned much about anything but how to manipulate people and referee the rich and the poor. How sad, I thought. Boiled down, politics usually makes you the big kid in the sandbox who is not a bully.
There is often a bully in the sandbox (the rich) and a small, weak red headed kid (the poor) who are both desiring the same, much sought after toys to play with. It is not hard to imagine the bully ending up with all the toys. Politics injects kids who are capable of being bullies (artifically, with political power, but also brute strength when required, see Wikipedia: "police", or "U.S. Army") into the sandbox to make sure that everybody shares, and hopefully does not use their power to take all the toys for themselves. This is the ideal working of politics from my understanding.
However, the saddest part, to me, is that this amounts to society more or less admitting the intrinsic selfish nature of the human race. We have decided that without big guns and laws and threats of punishment up to, and including, death, we cannot get along. There will never be a group of kids in the sandbox that will just share. There will always be at least one kid big enough to take all the toys and leave all the other kids bored and, in our case, starving to death. As sad as this is, I suppose that maybe this is correct and politics is a necessary evil. However, if you are starting to see a common thread you may predict that I do not discount the importance of politics I just suggest that, to me, there is something of even greater importance.
Now imagine there is a kid in the sandbox that figures out a way to make toys from sand. This kid is able to make enough toys so that even when the bully takes most of the toys he wants, there are still enough toys left over so that every kid can have at least a few to play with. I would say that this kid is an even more important addition to our sandbox than is the kid who is large but not a bully. As you might have guessed, this kid is our scientist. This kid does not simply referee the game but changes it completely, forever. The large kid who is not a bully simply referees for the time being, but after these kids leave and a new group of kids comes to the sandbox, there are still only a finite number of toys that the new kids will undoubtedly fight over. After the scientist is gone, the new toys are still there. They have changed the sandbox forever, for everybody. Especially if he leaves a note to future kids on how to make even more toys. I think politics is important and necessary but I do not think that it is even apples to apples when compared to science.
Why science chose me
What I have been discussing thus far is prety straightforward, although it did take me awhile to come to these conclusions. Perhaps the most shocking thing to me is how the rest of the world regards these things. What do most kids want to be when they grow up? A professional basketball player or an entomologist? A rap superstar or a biochemist? Who inputs these desires into their minds? Surely not every kid is born with the burning desire to score touchdowns. They must have been programmed for this at some point. Perhaps even more startling is the economy behind the whole operation. Do your homework: how much money is spent on professional sports every year? On music and entertainment? Politics and government? How about science? I can assure you your research will return very discouraging results. You will find that a very, very small and disproporationate percentage of the overall economy is spent on science and research. Ask any graduate physics student that can't afford groceries. I'm sure they will be more than happy to give you a healthy earful of their economic problems. It is simply not enough (at least in my mind) to say that I chose science because it sucks less than politics or anything else I can come up with. This is a good reason to not do any of the rest of the options but not a solid idea of why I should do science. The reason I choose science is because science needs me. And you. In fact, right now science and critical thinking need all the help they can get. Although I will caution you: do not get into science for the reasons I got into sports. No matter how genius you are, no matter how many breakthroughs you make, no matter how many long standing ideas you overturn, there will always be someone better who will eclipse your accomplishments before they even graduate high school. That is just the way it is. We are evolving, still. There will always be someone better, faster, stronger. If not now, someday. Sooner rather than later, usually. Do science for everyone, for ever. Do science because you could be that kid who leaves the note in the sandbox. Do science because I quite frankly do not know who invented the process that gives us beer, but boy am I glad he did. That is why I chose science, or rather, why science chose me.
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2 comments:
Hey J – while I have to say that, as a writer and co-editor of an art and literary magazine, I have to STRONGLY disagree with your logic regarding the intrinsic value of the arts as a whole. So I’d like to correct you if you don’t mind:
The importance of arts is the inspiration and effects that the artist has on its audience. The right artist, with the right exposure, has the chance to change the world and the way people see it. However, this is very infrequently the case.
I agree with your first sentence in part: you seem to miss the whole point of self-expression and the value that creating art has for the artist themselves. After that first sentence I completely disagree. You are saying that unless you are Picasso or The Beatles then why bother trying? You aren’t really affecting any kind of real change right? That’s completely and totally false. The arts do have ways of reaching people – I run a small art and literary magazine and we have been very successful in bringing together a small community of people. We are building connections with other artists for collaborative projects. We are providing people with an outlet for their self-expression. We are a showcase for beautiful poetry, photography, fiction – the list goes on! We are running community workshops for writing and helping people get more involved with other writers. Ok, now that I’m done talking about how awesome my magazine is, I can take a break to say that we probably won’t change the world. But this experience alone has changed my life forever. My life is richer and has more meaning knowing that I’m helping people succeed as writers and artists. You simply cannot try to measure inspiration in the number of people you inspire. Even if you write a beautiful poem and it only inspires yourself – well, I feel there is deep, meaningful value there. You simply can’t measure emotional experience, personal growth or inspiration. Just because something isn’t quantifiable doesn’t negate its importance.
The more common use of music and art is simply entertainment, which I do believe is important. However, I feel that it is important to distinguish that I am not saying that any of these pursuits like athletics, arts, or politics are not on some level important, but just that I regard them with less overall greater importance than I do science.
Here you are saying that if you aren’t affecting great change, then the only other purpose art must serve is entertainment. This is kind of ridiculous. Even on a small scale, the arts have so many purposes: community building, education, cultural preservation and expression, affect political change, therapeutic purposes, add value to a community, self expression! One beautiful piece of art can change someone’s emotional state. I’m not just talking about Mozart’s symphonies here. I have a friend who writes beautiful songs and barely sings them to anyone – but I’ve been changed by her music. To say the only value the arts have is for entertainment you are devaluing the better part of human history. Human beings create. Human beings imagine. This is one of the things that sets us apartment from all other species.
Arts, to me, are like a drug…
I will refrain from being insulted here because I think you are a nice guy and don’t mean any harm. For you to argue that just because all your experiences with the arts made you irresponsible and flaky and then to deduce that this must be the case for all people with all art forms – that is not only insulting, but its unfounded. You are saying that your personal experiences must define everyone else’s – and that’s just bad logic there. I will give you this: art can be used as a form of escapism. But arts also inspire people in the darkest moments of their lives. They are a call to action – personal and political action. The arts have inspired revolutions! Great literature has made people so upset they wish to burn the very words of the author. The arts can change they way people think, the way people live their lives, their ethics and values.
Arts make you feel better for a little while but science actually makes us better, more often than not, forever.
This statement is wrong in two ways. One, you are making it sound like all scientists are working on a cure for cancer. There are plenty of scientists out there who aren’t extending our life span. There is also plenty of silly science out there! Just take a look at the Ignoble Prize winners for this year. Science can simply make our lives enjoyable in the same way some art can make our lives enjoyable. I have see no problem with this – but don’t argue that all sciences endeavors are solving the AIDS crisis when we all know its not the case. Also, you seem to say that any value that art provides is fleeting emotional distraction at best. You have sold the arts short here. Why do we have entire museums dedicated to the preservation of great works of art? Should we not waste our time investing in the preservation of our libraries full of great works of literature? These things have lasted through the ages just like science. The arts and sciences do strive toward different goals in some areas, but neither is more or less valuable than the other. So sure, science can extend our lifespan so humans will someday live for 500 years, but without the arts, with out language, without music, without self-expression – we will surely be bored and lacking. Sure science can keep us a live but the arts make life worth living.
Here's an interesting article you should check out: http://www.krachtvancultuur.nl/en/current/2005/september/culture-in_development.html
Laura,
I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said. And then some. I think this is one of the times that my true self is failing to be hidden behind the mask of sanity. Being an artist my entire life, going to art schools, and being a musical prodigy at such as early age has indeed left me very cynical and very much unable to appreciate what the arts are all about. However, this blog was more about what the arts mean to me. Not to anyone else. In order to understand that, you must understand that I have made music that has moved people, and made music that has made people move. I have supported myself financially with music. I have spent over 2/3 of my life unequivocally dedicated to music. And never have I been flaky. I think you misinterpreted my analogy of music to a drug. I don't feel moved by art, and it does not cause me to move. I have a great understanding of the technical aspects and therefore, by use of formulaic logic, I am able to create art that people enjoy. What is it about my art that people enjoy or feel inspired by? To be honest, I have no idea. A great analogy, to me, is giving someone who does not speak english a book in english. Knowing all the letters of the alphabet (from their previous language) and the sounds they represent, this person could no doubt read this book aloud. Albeit not perfectly, but, if given enough time this person could probably even recite some of it from memory. In fact, they may be able to take the words that they learned and rearrange them in their own way into sentences that make sense to someone who speaks english. However, for all of this impressive show, this person has no idea what the words mean. I am this person. I am aware of the concept of art supposedly changing the way people see the world, the joy it is to supposedly bring, and the other emotions it can invoke. However, I simply do not understand them. I can analyze a painting, categorize brush strokes, compliment on use of color, and distinguish between sloppy art and proficient art. I am great at this, because of my detachment, I suppose. I just don't get out of art what other people tell me they get out of art. So while you are absolutely right, and I somewhat understand some of these sensations (mostly the tranquility that is brought on by creating art, mostly because it takes concentration and it is able to block me from thinking rational thoughts) I just don't get out of art what I think most people do. This is why I have chosen to shift my life away from something I could undoubtedly made a career out of. I don't feel emotions as such. I feel logic. I can quantify a cure for cancer and count the number of people that have been saved as a consequence of it. That is the closest to what you think of happiness I think I will ever experience. I see happiness and emotions in math, numbers, results, and other quantitative ways. The rest, I suppose, I will leave to the rest. I do not choose to disagree with you in any way, rather I chose to feel humbled by your deep respect for the humanities and your appreciation of something as special as the creation of beautiful art and the exchange of human emotion. In fact, I envy you deeply. But to be honest, if all the Van Gogh's were accidentally burnt tomorrow in flames, I would feel regret that such proficiency and effort were wasted but, sadly, I would not grieve them. I can not say the same for penicillin. I can see that I have a lot to learn from you and I am truly sorry if I somehow offended you in any way, but please try to understand that I pull no punches and am as open and honest as I can be and sometimes this can cause discomfort. Especially when it exposes the glaring ignorance behind a normally quasi-logical human being.
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