Some general thoughts on science, sentimentality, and why I should not be a vet

Sentmentality

Melissa and I were talking about this, and I am really interested and concerned about why sentimentality is such a bad thing . . . because I think that there is a strong parallel between the scientific studies and their aversion to sentimentality and the same issue in the representation. It seems like it's hard for any scientist to resist the desire to describe the laboratory animals in these quite sentimental or human or at least personified sorts of ways -- to say -- I know in science we have to be more rigorous, but in my real life, let me tell you about how my dog wakes me up at night to show me a tick on the floor and ask me to pick it up. Or Irene Pepperberg. This is very much a problem in science, and I gather, in art, but it really is the way that relate to so many animals in our lives. So what does that mean?

On why I didn't become a vet, but why animals and science are still great

This whole process of looking at animals reminds me that I have liked animals and science for a really really long time. And it makes me wonder why this is such a recurring topic for me. At first, I thought drawing dogs was like some kind of sad, desperate attempt to return to something that I know or enjoy because of my incessant failure at everything else. But actually, I kind of don't think it's that. I think that science itself continues to be a thing that interests me because I long for the kind of rigor, "objectivity" and legitimacy that science affords. Like, being able to back things up with studies and things that are provable seems really attractive, understandably, in a world of such subjectivity as art.

But visiting the Vet Med open house the other day reminded me that there are reasons I didn't decide to go into veterinary medicine. I came to the conclusion that many times, people are wrong when they ask you what you like and tell you what you should do. Because even though I find science fascinating, want to read about animals, the day to day of being a vet would be possibly the worst thing ever. Because I saw the following things:

1. a video of an emergency c-section of a cow, 2. a photo of a horse intenstine full of bot fly larvae, and 3. the opportunity to touch (with gloves on) the rubber tendon of a severed horse leg (on ice) . . . i am again reminded of why I didn't take the path of veternary medicine. As it turns out, one can be incredibly interested in a topic and have no desire to actualy live the day to day of that field.

This is sort of the first time when what I am interested in doing and what I am doing feels really genuine to me. . . that my interest in it is not forced simply by feeling like "I should read this" or "I should make these things" but that I really want to know about them.