If I were born again.

You know it’s a question that often gets asked and I’m sure a lot of people often consider it. “If you could live your life again what would you do differently”. Now I could be cliché and say “nothing” and that would obviously be a lie. I do love the life I’ve lead and I don’t want to change anything, there is nothing I regret doing. That being said would I do things different given the chance.

Hell yeah.  I mean there are a million, billion possible lives branching of every second that we live. Who knows if they are better or worse but for certain they are different. If you believe the many worlds interpretation then those branches are going on right now. I can definitely say for some of those branches it’s rather other me than me.

So why am I writing this post? Well it was just an interesting thought that came up when talking to some friends and fellow researchers. When a researcher is presented with this question, or some derivative there of, about 90% of the time their answer involves not doing researcher. It amazed me really. If they could change thing they wouldn’t change their field but get out of science altogether.

That got me to thinking, “Is the research life really so hard?”. Well I think not. I’ve never met anyone who does this that isn’t deeply enthralled by what they do, with the drive to do something or find something new. In fact some are so driven that it’s a little scary. Then why given the chance would they get out of science?

I think part of it is that research is always research. Whether you are a field biologist or a theoretical physicist. Ok so in one case you’ll be dredging your way through mud in torrential rain to get that elusive worm sample whilst in the other you’re stuck in front of a huge string of code trying to figure out how the universe comes together but the processes involved are the same. You think of an idea, why it might be so and then you test and test and test.

It can be tough and it can be grinding but in the end it’s always rewarding. The funny thing is, and I know it’s cliché, is that science requires a hell of a lot of creativity and unilateral thinking. It’s no wonder that when asked most scientists cite things as ‘literature’ ‘painting’ ‘graphic design’ etc etc, as their alternate professions. I think no matter how we would be ‘born again’ it would always be into something that requires an unwavering, single minded, determination.

Sorry nothing much about Japan today but just a little bit of insight into the research world. I’ve been thinking a lot about it through the sleepless nights recently. I’ll leave you with a quote from the big boss man of RIKEN and Nobel laureate Professor Noyori.

“If I were to live my life again would I still be a scientist. Definitely not. I’d be a painter”

oyasumi nasai,mata kondo ne.