Thank you for this — it made me want to add a few of my own. Luck. In the most literal sense. My diagnosis does not guarantee I keep my mind. A slightly harder fall, a slightly different trajectory, and I would not have the chance to get out of bed — let alone move to the US and write on this forum. I am here because something went right that easily could have gone wrong. That is not a small thing to carry. Voice. Directly connected to the previous one. I happened to keep the ability to think, speak, and write. Others with my diagnosis did not — not because they worked less or wanted less, but because that is how it went. Epilepsy, for instance, often presents an impossible choice: think clearly and suffer seizures, or have the seizures managed and lose the cognitive capacity. I got lucky with my particular version of the equation. That luck feels like a debt. Location. Chagall and Chaim Soutine would have spent their lives as rabbis’ assistants if they had not made it to Paris. I am sometimes told I do not represent my community because I do not suffer to the same degree. But I represent it for a simpler reason: they are not here, and I am. That is not a small thing either. Curiosity. The most literal kind. If you strip away the ideology, a researcher is someone who establishes possible connections between variables — nothing more. What drives me is solving the equation, not fixing the world. Or more precisely: my ability to see the equation inside a broken button is what lets me fix the button. The fixing is downstream of the seeing.
Thank you for this — it made me want to add a few of my own.
Luck. In the most literal sense. My diagnosis does not guarantee I keep my mind. A slightly harder fall, a slightly different trajectory, and I would not have the chance to get out of bed — let alone move to the US and write on this forum. I am here because something went right that easily could have gone wrong. That is not a small thing to carry.
Voice. Directly connected to the previous one. I happened to keep the ability to think, speak, and write. Others with my diagnosis did not — not because they worked less or wanted less, but because that is how it went. Epilepsy, for instance, often presents an impossible choice: think clearly and suffer seizures, or have the seizures managed and lose the cognitive capacity. I got lucky with my particular version of the equation. That luck feels like a debt.
Location. Chagall and Chaim Soutine would have spent their lives as rabbis’ assistants if they had not made it to Paris. I am sometimes told I do not represent my community because I do not suffer to the same degree. But I represent it for a simpler reason: they are not here, and I am. That is not a small thing either.
Curiosity. The most literal kind. If you strip away the ideology, a researcher is someone who establishes possible connections between variables — nothing more. What drives me is solving the equation, not fixing the world. Or more precisely: my ability to see the equation inside a broken button is what lets me fix the button. The fixing is downstream of the seeing.