Memories in Lindau

It all started with the craziness at Schipol airport. In short, I arrived 3.5 hours in advance and I almost missed my flight. The shortage of staff was probably not the only thing to blame, passengers’ expectation of long queues and chaos inevitably fueled the vicious cycle. As too many passengers arrived too early just to make sure they can get on the plane, which jammed the airport even more.

After a long day of travel, I finally arrived at the hotel, tired and exhausted. To my surprise, there was a group of Chinese scholars gathered in the hotel lobby. They asked if I was also coming for the meeting. I nodded and walked straight to the reception to check-in, at this point, I was just too tired to have any small talks. It seems the organizer arranged the hotel based on nationality, as more than half of the names on the guest list were Chinese. It was an interesting arrangement. Naturally, we got to know each other quickly and had a WeChat group. I admit it was like getting into a comfort zone where everything felt familiar, chatting casually in my native language with people from similar cultures and backgrounds. But in the back of my mind, I was frequently reminded of the stereotype of how Chinese students like to stick together instead of integrating with others. At the same time, avoiding Chinese fellows just in fear of reinforcing the stereotype feels wrong also. Sometimes, I found myself caught between a rock and a hard place. In the end, the longer I stayed in the comfort zone the less comfortable it may become.

The official programme started the next day. Half an hour before the opening ceremony, the congress hall was already crowded with formally dressed young scientists chatting amicably with each other upon their first meet. Everyone was there to network. I had never been socializing with so many new people in such a short period of time. As overwhelming as it felt, I tried to interact with people as much as I can. After all, that’s why I came in the first place. I don’t know on average how many people each of us can remember in the end. For me, only a dozen of people with whom I exchanged more than small talks. I had the feeling that 95% of participants are workaholics and almost no one cares about work-life balance. I heard things like “If all the scientists had worked only for 40 hours a week, our science and technology would still be stagnated in the 15th century.” and one comment on Germany implementing the four-day work week: “If you truly love doing your research, how is it possible to work only 32 hours a week?” One day a postdoc told me he was replying to emails until 3 am the night before. All of these are probably not completely surprising, given all the participants have an excellent publication track record, supposedly representing the future generation of leading scientists. Unfortunately, I also overwork from time to time, which I’m not proud of, but it’s just sad that no one here seems to consider this to be a problem. In all the panel discussions, from trust in science to diversity in academia, well-being was not once mentioned.

Quite a few Nobel Laureates’ stories were deeply inspiring in an unexpected way. With a Ph.D. in physics, V.R. went back to take undergraduate courses in biology to enter a new field. Later He applied for almost 50 faculty positions and none of them gave him a chance for an interview. But he never settled for his plan B, to be a high school teacher, he just gave himself one chance after the other to chase his dream. D.S. was fired by his group leader for his discovery of quasicrystals that didn’t exist in the textbook at the time. And he was once lampooned by L.P. as a quasi-scientist. In the end, D.S. said, “If you believe only in the books, you should be in religion, not in science.” S.W.H. also faced long-term opposition and rejection. Before he could publish in Nature or Science for super-resolution microscopy, his fiercest opponent published an article in Nature openly questioning whether he actually achieved resolution improvement at all. He was even being told at a conference if he kept claiming he can break the diffraction limit, no one would take him seriously. And my take-home message from all these stories is that tenacity got them a long way.

Apart from all the inspiring stories, it was an incredibly humbling experience. Every day, I was immersed in the scientific exchange between brilliant minds. Most impressively, some laureates are still very sharp, quick thinking, and swift with repartee even in their 60s or 70s. And I had to be highly focused to keep up with the discussion in my 20s. It’s precisely this confrontation with the humbling feeling inside that triggered me to once again think about the big questions in life. Have I been simply drifting through life? Is it worth it to spend my time on insignificant research projects? What do I really want to do? What kind of person do I want to be? Unfortunately, just like any other time that I thought about these questions, the closest answer I could come up with was what I don’t want. Realizing the reality of staying in academia makes me question whether this is the right path for me. Although I do enjoy doing research (when it’s making sense). For me, it is a process of developing questions and testing hypotheses with satisfying curiosity as a wonderful byproduct. And I still believe solving an important research problem or discovering an exciting phenomenon is probably the coolest achievement. The truth is the important research problem is really difficult to solve. And I simply have to face up to the fact that I don’t have a bright mind full of great ideas. Feeling the distance between ideal and reality is painful.

Finally, let’s talk a little bit about photography. Out of sheer habit, I couldn’t help paying attention to event photographers around. Interestingly, I asked the same questions to three professional photographers and I got the exactly same answers. For such an event each of them shoots about 700-800 photos per day, all in raw, and they only delete photos later on their computers. One time I noticed a photographer didn’t cover the unused lens and I asked why. He told me it was more important to capture the moment than to keep the lens mount clean. And it is serendipity that the young female photographer I talked to turned out to be a great lifestyle photographer and a Lightroom ambassador. She told me she had her first camera at 10 years old and has been loving photography ever since. How enviable it is to be able to turn your childhood hobby into your profession and enjoy it.