(With apologies to Ms. Frizzle of the Magic School bus cartoon series) This post is a little different from our normal fare, but it seems like a good choice for a Friday afternoon.
Thomas S. Mullaney, Assistant Professor of Modern Chinese History at Stanford University, recently published a lovely post on the unofficial stanford blog. "Purism, aka, The Near Life Experience" describes an experience on a long flight to China involving a medical emergency and rusty language skills. There's no practical connection to scientific careers, but his conclusion reminds me of the theme of Peter Fiske's "Opportunities" series:
Replace your purism with audacity, that precious reservoir of self-confidence that allows a person to plow forward through a life checkered with faults and errors. To live is to live impurely. To speak is to make mistakes. To begin to write is to write badly. Purism is paralysis.
Perfection is boring.
Trust me, I'm sort of a doctor.
Happy weekend.
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