Just Relax (?!)

As I've mentioned, this summer I've been working at the UCO/Lick Observatory, which is a network of astronomers who work with and for the UC system. I walked to my building this morning with one of the astrophysics postdocs, who takes the same bus I do. As part of my lifelong quest to make conversation,* I mentioned that he and the other astro people I've met seem incredibly relaxed compared to the history and lit kids I'm more familiar with. Here's what I learned:

• We need to relax.
• We should just be able to work on our projects and not get so worried.
• If you've got a good project, it doesn't matter if it's done tomorrow or in two months, so why sweat the details?

Right.

Here's what I think:

• Scientists know they're going to get jobs when they're done spending their six or seven years getting a doctorate. (Thanks for pointing that out, Tweak). We sure as shit don't.
• Scientists have a huge number of unanswered questions. Historians have to invent a question that might be of interest to other historians (and, occasionally, other human beings besides historians) before they can even start working on answering the bloody thing.
• Scientists, even grad students, have access to a lot of grant money. Historians have access to a whole hell of a lot less grant money.

I'm not at all bitter about any of this. As much as I like being a humanities guy, the smart money's on scientists being more useful, in most senses of the word. Their work requires more hard-and-fast resources (i.e. computers, labs, etc.), and thus requires the existence of larger bodies to fund them. And until we know exactly how everything in the entire universe works, it's only fair and logical that they have an easier time finding interesting things to study.

That said, it's absurd to tell grads in the humanities to just kick back and let the good times roll. We can't. We're dead broke and we have to spend as much time trying to figure out what to study as we do actually studying. Once in a while, a historian or a student of literature or philosophy publishes something important that reveals something important, but the chances of being one of those lucky writers is even lower than of being a scientist who makes a real, earth-shaking discovery.

So: my former advisor was very, very right in warning me, as I completed by BA and asked him about grad school prospects, that I shouldn't do it unless I felt like I had to. I wonder why I didn't feel like I had to take advantage of being a first-world citizen instead? Doh.

* This is, perhaps, the very root of my interpersonal conduct.

P.S. We leave for the scenic Pacific Northwest tomorrow evening. I'm bringing my laptop, so I'll probably update at least once while I'm up there. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing everyone I get to see and I apologize in advance to everyone I miss. Stay up, players.