I dedicate today’s journal to failure because it is never emphasised enough how crucial failure is. In the scientific community we idolise our heroes; sculpted beings excuding perfection whose every thought process is a seminal piece of research that should be printed on gold plating and presented to the gods. Personally, one of my idols is Douglas Hofstadter who has written timeless books such as The Mind’s I, I am a Strange Loop, and Metamagical Themas (I know, I have yet to read Godel, Escher, Bach - I save desert until the end of the meal). His work is seminal and his perspectives are so playful and impassioned. He once gave a lecture in Zurich where he talked about the start of his academic career, from childhood until Doctoral fellow. In this story, Hofstadter told about the time he quit his first PhD appointment during the middle of a presentation he was giving because he was appalled by the state of the field of particles physics and how it had deviated from the first works of Pauli and the likes. I meditate on this story during times of doubt because it gives me hope as I struggle through my own academic career. If an acclaimed researcher such as Douglas Hofstadter can admit defeat and quit his PhD, potentially shattering his career prospects and his social network he had built up, then no one should fear having to confront uncertain hardships or failures.

This article by Martin Schwartz, a biomedical researcher, is comforting and I enjoy its brashness. Researchers and scientists are stupid.

“If our ignorance is infinite, the only possible course of action is to muddle through as best we can.” - Martin Schwartz

Research happens at the frontier. An analogy that forms in my mind is the growth of a microbial colony forming a biofilm on a circle of agar. Research scientists are the microbes at the front of the growth; defining th boundary between the agar and the colony. Within this colony, knowledge is what is behind you towards the colony centre, but this path is well trodden. Although traversing some areas may pose a challenge, there are those around that can help you in the unsteady patches. But at the fronteir there is no one to pull you towards the next step. No number telling you the correctness of your decision, no written exam to clarify your achievement. This is why research is so draining for some. Struggling with this is common to all PhD students and I am currently experiencing a long bout of drainage. But those who can seek success while confronting the obscurity of the unknown - like Hofstadter inverting his career in one ‘foolish’ move - will have the biggest growth. Hence I now encourage you to find the glass on your desk as half full: when you read something and you feel stupid, that can only mean that you are working at the limits of your understanding and that you will grow by learning it. Taming these holes in your knowledge is what leads to insightful breakthroughs in research.