Careful Steps

When a person has too much on their plate, it becomes difficult to focus on a single task.  Here I am. Multiple things on my plate and I go and add a blog post. Well, it’s my out: my brief escape.

I’m ambitious, very, and my next project proposal will include studies for translational clinical work. Human trials for the therapeutic treatment I’ve been working on for the past several years.

Unlike conventional therapy, my hope is to begin working on genetic manipulation as a method to target a molecule that I think is involved in neuropathic pain – specifically tactile allodynia, or the type of pain that occurs through the sense of touch.

The idea is to change the way neurons in the spinal cord process information at the genetic/protein level. This has several advantages, including specificity (less side effects) and durability (a longer-lasting treatment, e.g., even permanent).

This is running in the background of all the myriad of other projects and administrative duties I’m responsible for; of course, I’m still trying to obtain funding for this exciting project with a goal of trying to see if early clinical trials are possible within the decade.

I think right now, today, the hardest part for me personally is being patient and careful in making each step I make count well.

Genetic engineering is not this easy.

I Quit Coffee

I’ve quit coffee. I don’t know how long my abstinence from coffee will last, but it should be for a while. I think I want to do this. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s a personal challenge, I don’t know. I drank upwards of 3-5 medium-large cups of coffee a day, interspersed with diet sodas. I think I’ve consumed between 300-600mg of caffeine a day when all is said and done. This has gone on for at almost 10 years.

There have been lapses in my coffee consumption, with all the associated withdrawal symptoms, i.e., headaches, joint aches, etc., but never have I gone more than a few days without caffeine.

I never considered the affects of drinking coffee and diet sodas. It was a daily routine, a habit, and the health consequences were never on my mind. I still think and thought that it has no consequences, and if there are any, they are beneficial.

I’m a healthy individual and have been despite all my coffee drinking. Blood pressure, weight (well could use some help here), and cardiovascular health seem normal based on doctor check-ups. I’ve experienced mental struggles due to stress and other life challenges, but no incidence of major chronic issues that persisted over long bits of time. I’m not on any prescription long-term medicines.

Normal. Average.

Quitting coffee…I’m not even sure it’s a healthy option to quit. I’ve quit coffee just because I want to. Maybe it’s a self-experiment to see what it’s like to be without something I’ve partaking day-after-day. It’s not good to have a habit that can’t be voluntarily broken. That’s called an addiction.

A person shouldn’t be mastered by anything, except his/her own will to choose. I don’t want to get too deep, as I’m often wont to do.

It’s been more than 24-36 hours since my last cup of coffee or any dose of caffeine, so my body should have cleared the chemical entirely.

I’m not sure if what I’m experiencing is a clearing or a return to normalcy. I feel myself gliding, rather than scratching along the ground as I did when I was drinking coffee regularly.

My headaches have disappeared and the aches I have still linger, but are nearly tolerable, unlike the first day or so. I feel a bit more unfocused, honestly. It’s a slight concern that I will lose my edge at work. The ability to concentrate is important, but if I’m to succeed shouldn’t it be on my own accord apart from a drug?

In the end, I don’t know why I’m quitting coffee. I just want to. It’s a self-experiment and I want to see what happens and how I feel and act.

If coffee has been a major contributor to any part of my life, then the absence of it should lead to something changing. I suppose I want to find out what that would be.

Good bye coffee beans! (at least for now)

Blown Up Writing

There are so many meanings to words. The underlying thoughts of the writer do not convey well without a well constructed strand of words. The context of a something, a unit, is just as important to the meaning of such a unit. In this way, all things important cannot exist in a vacuum.

A tip for writing well, I saw: When possible use the positive form of a clause, rather than the negative. Peoples’ attention are drawn to positives. For example, instead of saying “for no particular reason”, you could also write this as “for a random reason”.

Today I was reading the edits from a project article I wrote, a review on my research, and several words flew up from the page and caught my attention. These phrases or words, really, are as follows in random order:

• emerging evidence
• Induction, induced….by
• Injury or disease insults
• confound
• non-parallel trajectories
• spine function is partly morphology
• direct action versus indirect ones
• ramifications

Writing is fun, and painful at the same time. The first step is to write all of it down and mold what’s left on the page into the final product. As you write, you relieve yourself of the mess that is within. But it is intelligent to use a loose outline, a framework to propel those thoughts into an organized manner, as best as possible; so that once you return to the text, you can locate what you need. Have a sense of where things are going without worrying about swerving off the original path.

Sightsee. Look at the environment as you pass, and wonder at the new plants and animals you come across. Again, nothing you do in thought or action, procedural or implicit reaction happens in a void. There is context. That context is important. When you write, you travel through a mental space surrounded by more mental space; and like a flowing stream which carries the sediment and loose dirt along its banks, the process of writing ideas down on a page make the rest of the neat little discoveries come out as well.

Momentum. Surely, when you write there is a need and joy in having momentum. If you stop writing, then the flowing stream of thoughts lose its power; and that power is what keeps you going in the hard parts. Really, the worries and concerns that stumble a careful, pretentious writer–one who writes for the thoughts of others–kills the joy of writing. Write first for yourself; then edit for others. Even then, maintain your footing.

The importance of courage. That confidence, that bravado, the thing within that drives a person to hurl themselves upon an enemy without fear of death or maiming, is what a writer needs when they first start, when they hurtle through the middle parts of their composition, and especially at the endings where things must come to a close; and hopefully to a satisfying conclusion. Through this headlong charge, a person does not worry about what those who are not at battle think about. And moreover, as this army advances whether running or marching, it does not worry how his feet work, or where his knees are, or how he is holding his nose up or down. His eyes and his body have forgotten how to do anything other than move forward. There is an emptiness here and a fullness, too.

Words on a page.

When To Quit

When is it time to quit?  In the face of insurmountable challenges, I have begun to ask this question. I hold the white towel in my hand and cocked my arm to throw it in; but a still voice inside says, “wait”.

Wait. A word-fruit derived from the virtue of patience.

I can’t wait. I need and want funding so I can continue to perform my research. I love studying, thinking, and learning. I enjoy the discovery points of science research, and sharing, writing; and of course, I enjoy teaching.

But, these poor economic times have now come home to roost. It’s a mess in the non-profit research sector (and maybe in industrial areas as well). Funding levels are at an all-time low and all signs point to this circumstance as the new status quo.

I sit here pondering my future 3-5 years from now. I am making progress in my work—and I realize that small discoveries always have the potential to become paradoxically large discoveries with high impact on society. So, I don’t downplay my efforts in regards to what it could do.

My concern has to do with personal things. The paycheck, the salary, the ability to “run the show” as it were. And yes, I would like to lead a team in the future. Let’s face it, all scientists have an expiration date and I’d like to do something with this stuff I’ve learned before mine hits the final, final deadline.

Silly me, thinking about this ethereal thing called “legacy”. No, my struggle isn’t with raising myself up. I don’t believe that. Deep down I want to see what I am capable of given the full chance to thrive in the scientific realm of research.

But there’s this thing called grant funding in my way, and it’s a stumbling block. A brick wall that I’ve learned has no cracks in it despite how many times I strike it, or even bringing along a friend to hit it (i.e., collaborators). This is a wall that I haven’t built, know little about its structure, and I have gathered as many hammers and other weapons as I can.

Have I done enough to make myself strong enough to hurtle my body, fleshy stumps of hands, feet, and face into this wall? When do I quit beating myself into the ground? My ego has passed into the night, and now alone I drive myself on sheer grace and calling alone.

Two opposing force tear at me—

I want to quit.

I want to be a frigging successful scientist.

But, I think I also hear this third force, a still voice that says, “wait”.

I might be going nuts.

The Enigma of Numbers

I’m analyzing data. Simple. Tedious.

As I speak (write?), on my second computer monitor, there is a spreadsheet open and I can see row upon row of numbers–it’s data. Now I’ve spent weeks collecting all this information and it comes down to this final step where I plug this data into statistical formulas to see if our observations are due to “real” effects or random chance.

Motivation to analyze data comes from the excitement and pressure to find out if we have discovered anything new. It’s a slow process, but it a core procedure in any scientific endeavor. To provide a perspective, some projects only require a single day to perform the experiment (the hands-on part); but then it takes weeks-or-months to complete the statistical analysis. Did that single day of experimentation yield anything useful?

“Well, I think I can get you an answer next year.”

Here. I. Am.

Staring at a spreadsheet. Boo.

Time for some coffee….

 

Bummer

Two grants rejected. Wow.

Again, and again, I’m reminded about how difficult my job is. There are never-ending pressures to produce data–not food, or money, or anything tangible–but this intellectual “stuffs”. I work with a currency that is traded on paper, conversations among peers, and processed in the mind banks of doctors and scientists.

I’m an academic researcher. Oh. My. God. Somedays, I wonder why I chose this profession. Then, I remember. It just fits me (at least for now, hehe). Can I imagine doing any other job? No. But, I don’t think that’s the reason to stay in any particular vocation.

The bigger reason exists for being where I am, but I’m making slow progress in my current project. I recently got a raise, made a few expensive purchases to help me in my endeavors; I guess I wonder what’s next, and of course, how to get there. It’s a intrinsic human drive to pursue things, even when we cannot grasp that we are pursuing. It’s like “chasing shadows” as a colleague and described, this career path we’re on.

So many bumps in the road. I could make a laundry list of my achievements; it’s not too shabby, but I think just today I want to “feel” successful.

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A shard of advice to others: when you want to learn something, go to the master, not his apprentice.

 

 

 

This gem sparkled for me when I was looking for someone to teach me how to execute a new technique in the laboratory. As it turned out, I went to the student rather than the head-honcho for advice on this matter–the student had more time to teach, ironically. Suffice it to say, I ended up getting information that was not entirely complete.

 

 

 

Hence, I failed my mission. In the end, it took me longer to figure out the gaps, than if I had tried to teach myself how to do this technique through the textbook. Ugh. Certainly, there are compromises when you try to do something new and you want to do it quick. Lesson learned: rushing to the wrong person for advice can often lead to wasted time or even a disaster.

 

 

 

Anyway, that’s my short morning thought for the day.