Life's Persistent Questions

I got sick today.

Half way through a talk today, I felt sick. I felt the butterflies in my stomach. A co-worker of mine told me later he felt dizzy too. I don't know what to call it. The talk seemed to go on forever, and I half-hoped that the talk would finish. But the truth is, I didn't.

I was enthralled, actually. The talk by Dr. Roger Tsien was one of the most fascinating talks I have ever seen. I felt sick because it was downright scary how brilliant his work was. When I was an undergrad at San Diego, I stumbled across his work with green fluorescent protein (GFP) and that got me hooked. Today's talk was really about his work since the late '90s. In a short seven years, the progress and innovation that came out of his group were simply astounding. You know how you call some people smart merely because they can follow your logic and line of thought. Then there are those who are smart because you can see the implication of their ideas as soon as they are spoken. Then there are those who are smart because they see impossible possibilites far down the road that the courage and insight went into making these pipe-dreams into reality completely floors you. I keep expecting the talk to finish because I didn't think I was able to soaking so much trial-blazing discoveries in the short 60 minutes. The sick feeling in my stomach? Maybe it's the exhaustion of an aspiring scientist that found himself utterly shattered by the bold brilliance of a pioneer, or maybe it's the anxiety of "I can't wait to throw myself back into work."

posted by hedgehog @ 10:41 PM