On the Medical Profession (Middlemarch, George Eliot)

...he carried to his studies in London, Edinburgh, and Paris, the conviction that the medical profession as it might be was the finest in the world; presenting the most perfect interchange between science and the art; offering the most direct alliance between intellectual conquest and the social good. Lydgate's nature demanding this combination: he was an emotional creature, with a flesh-and-blood sense of fellowship which withstood all the abstractions of special study. 

He meant to be a unit who would make a certain amount of difference towards that spreading change which would one day tell appreciably upon the averages, and in the meantime have the pleasure of making an advantageous difference to the viscera of his own patients. But he did not simply aim at a more genuine kind of practice than was common. He was ambitious of a wider effect: he was fired with the possibility that he might work out the proof of an anatomical conception and make a link in the chain of discovery. 

'If I had not taken that turn when I was a lad,' he thought, 'I might have got into some stupid draught-horse work or other, and lived always in blinkers. I should never have been happy in any profession that did not call forth the highest intellectual strain, and yet keep me in good warm contact with my neighbours. There is nothing like the medical profession for that: one can have the exclusive scientific life that touches the distance and befriend the old fogies in the parish too...'

He was saved from hardening effects by the abundant kindness of his heart and his belief that human life might be made better.

Introducing The Musical Vesicle!

We're all well and acquainted with The Literary Vesicle, a vesicle that shares books and literary tidbits. Obviously, a Musical Vesicle has been long past due. Of course, this synapse harbors quite a bit (by quite, I mean the British "quite") of music already, so how is this vesicle different? Read on, and you'll see.

She rolled back down to the warm soft ground

Laughin', she don't know why, but she had to try, she had to try (Heart, "Dog and the Butterfly")

There she goes - still flying. She doesn't look back, no use to look down when sun shines above and [the wind] (yes, that one) lifts her up. 

"Dog and the Butterfly" (Heart)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpoP4YSFKGA

Basically, this vesicle shares music. Where does the music come from? Random transmissions. That's all. Enjoy.  Access it by clicking "The Musical Vesicle" in the labels side bar.

"a little like [the wind]"

Remember way back when, when this synapse introduced The Literary Vesicle?

You'll find I'll continue to post snippets from books, but in a new style. I think you'll get what I mean if you read on!

Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life's cruelest irony (Douglas Coupland, Shampoo Planet).

There - outside - is the whistling of the wind that touches the leaves and animates all that come into its contact. But there you are - not. Separated by some wall (real or imagined), some distance (physical or emotional); you wonder when, if?, the wind will ever get you. And if you wonder long enough, you become a little like [the wind] (Nunokawa, "The Circling Game"). Maybe, hopefully?, the longed-for wind was with you, in you, all along. Turns out it wasn't a matter of the wind getting to know you, but you getting to know the wind.

Never is [a man] less alone than when he is by himself (Cicero to Cato, Shakespeare, Julius Caesar).

To Doubt What is Undoubtedly Right

Radiolab: How do you solve a problem like Fritz Haber?

How do you square the idea of a bad person who does great good? Or a good person who does terrible harm? Sam Kean introduces us to the confusing life story of Fritz Haber. Around 1900, Haber was a young chemist in Germany, intent on solving the biggest problem facing his country: how to feed a growing population. At the time, everyone was starting to worry that  we'd maxed out how much food the Earth could produce. But as Latif Nasser, Daniel Charles, and Fred Kaufman explain, Haber was intent on finding a solution. So he started experimenting...and pretty soon, ...

What happens: Haber wins the Nobel prize for converting Nitrogen into a nutritionally useful form and solves a food crises. Haber then uses the same process for gas warfare (Chlorine gas) and seems to delight in killing as many Allies as he can with it. His wife (also a gifted scientist) is horrified and argues for him to stop on moral grounds. He doesn't. She commits suicide. The next day, Haber goes to war to continue gas warfare leaving his son with a dead mother. The son then commits suicide. When the Germans are defeated, Haber spends years trying to develop a scientific process to collect gold from the sea to pay off Germany's war debt. He fails. Hitler comes to power, and Haber (a Jew) leaves the country. Nazi Germany uses a Haber-derived process to exterminate Jews (including Haber's extended family) in gas chambers.

It's a very gripping listen (hopefully that shocking summary is enough to get you to hear the whole story)...and I think one that will hopefully influence us as we move forward as people who want to impact the world. (By the way, Radiolab is my favorite radio show - always gets me thinking in different ways - on moral and social issues, in questioning conventional psychological thought/analysis, and with feel-good/thinking-good stories & sound-effects.)

Haber's story also reminds me of Richard Wagner - a horribly anti-Semitic man who made great music. I still don't know how to answer the question my music professor posed to me two years ago: should Wagner's music be played publicly? http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Wagner.html

I think the lessons boil down to not taking things to the extremes, to step back and doubt. In all those times we hate ourselves for doubting and falling in that uncertain limbo space, it's nice to know that doubt is good.  The "greater good" is a dangerous concept. As another Radiolab podcast quoted, what is "greater" and what is "good"? Perhaps there is no clear answer, and so we must always doubt what is undoubtedly right.