This is an homage to all the scientists out there, including my incredible eldest daughter, Rebekah, a Ph.D. candidate in Neuroscience at George Mason University in Virginia.
The heart of science, from the beginning, when it was one and the same with religion, is to find out why things are the way there are and how to fix, change, improve, build upon, or just understand as much as possible.
To be a good scientist you have to withstand the appearance of absurdity in what you seek. Like the paleontologist looking for bones, having to answer questions from his mother or father about how he can make a living, or what good it will do to find some old bone anyway.
Or the cosmologist who has the engineer for a best friend who chides her for always having her head beyond the clouds and never producing much while she, on the other hand, has built a car or a bridge or something practical.
But it is the scientist who will discover where we came from, where we are going, who we are, how we can survive, what kills us, what saves us, and why it is so. It is the scientist who is searching and in the searching, absurd as it seems, is finding and becoming great in the process.
I love scientists. Pass this on to one you love, too!
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“Man is absurd in what he seeks, great through what he finds.” – Paul Valery, 1871-1945, French poet and essayist