Wonder
At this point in the game, you're probably wondering why you should care about a project such as mine. And the absolute, complete, unfiltered truth is that in some moments, I do too. I wonder, why does all of this matter? And the answer to that question will be very different for every single person who comes across my work. Obviously though, there exist some logistical considerations that make C. Elegans my best outlet for learning neuroscience. Which, in some cases, may be good enough for me to realize how impossible this kind of thing was for me last year, and leave my ambitions at that. But as I'm sure most people would do, I can't help but strive to find more meaning and extract more value from what I am studying.
As you know, over the summer I wasn't only spending my time at the lab but I also spent some time volunteering at a Guilderland nursing home (Our Lady of Mercy Life Center). And although I was working in the same capacity the summer prior, I felt as if the second time around held more weight than the first. Perhaps it is because this time around, I had acquired a more involved knowledge and understanding of what was happening (in a biological sense) to some of the residents whom I served.
It was interesting to see and experience my own contrasting states of mind in thinking about the two different summers I spent volunteering there. But that is not the point - the point is that after I had built up my base of knowledge, it gave me a new light by which to see things. Not only did I witness the heartbreak of neurological diseases, but I also witnessed the residents' frailty. And this kind of affirmed to me the understanding of human complexity and the fact that to understand a human's biology in its entirety is a nearly impossible feat. That's why studying way smaller things such as nematodes isn't as trivial or worthless as we sometimes make it out to be. It's a necessary step in the long road to studying humans. I also think it makes us appreciate our own systems and functions far more because it is such an arduous process.
My goal for the next self-designed assessment is to provide people with a "so-what" - to reach the core of how my work, with all of its limitations, can teach us something about ourselves.
"Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering."
In this next part of my project, I want to convince others of our very own human wonders by displaying the process of going from worm to person.