Contemplation

It’s been a little while since I last updated, or it feels like it anyway: time passes a little strangely on a boat. Sometimes I feel like a minute is about 4 minutes long, and sometimes I feel like an hour is about 63 minutes long. Anyway, I’ve been busy. Too busy to post! Why? Because I’ve been contemplating things!

With only 2ish weeks left on our voyage, it’s time to start putting it all together. What’s the meaning of all this stuff? So I’ve been doing a lot of contemplation, and contemplation, as they say, is 1% inspiration and 99% napping. That being said, the whole contemplation thing only works if you have something to contemplate about. Actually, the search for something to contemplate is not at all contemptible; it is a contemplatible thing in itself. It took me a while, but I eventually found my contemplatee, and it’s everything.

So I’ve started to put together a larger picture... what is my purpose on this research vessel and what is the purpose of this research vessel? Well, I’ve decided that my purpose is to do my job. I’m pretty lucky in that my purpose is aligned with what I’m paid to do: film and stuff. Public Outreach. I wasn’t able to clearly state the purpose of this research vessel, which made me realize that I have a lot to figure out. So to help me wrap my head around all this stuff, I’ve started writing a bit of an essay. Page 1 is about how I got on the boat, but you don’t need to see that. Here is page 2 of the essay:

It is an odd circumstance of nature that advanced scientific understanding is often based on factors invisible to the unaided eye; there is a certain amount of trust that the public must put into the work of scientists. Wise old fogeys frequently say we know nothing at all, but that is misleading. Knowing even just a little bit is a world apart from knowing nothing at all. We certainly know enough to require high degrees of specialization among scientists in different fields, and enough to render that degree of specialization arcane to the average person. There is a distinct problem, however, in the channeling of information from specialized scientists to the public; distortions occur.

Popular understanding of global warming depends on the public hearing about the work and words of a small scientific community. I do not imply that—against all scientific evidence—global warming does not exist; after all, the sky being intangible hardly disproves its existence. Nor do I imply that even given the existence of global warming it is largely inconsequential; all we have to do is look at the rather obvious and deleterious side effects, which include the aggravation of extreme weather patterns and the endangerment of climate-dependent animal and plant species. There was a recent stir about polar bears found drowning for the first time in recorded history as a direct result of warmer temperatures melting their ice floe homes. The trying circumstances of the warming phenomenon, however, are not considered immediately apparent or serious enough to enact swift policy change; the media and politicians have claimed that not enough is known, or that nothing is yet proven. Those are blatantly false statements, as global warming is readily observed, but it is still true that there is much left to be investigated. The climate is a giant, complicated mix of processes: air and sea gas exchange, oceanic transport, heat transfer, cloud formation, rainfall patterns... the list goes on. Ultimately, however, the study of climate variability depends on the detection of minute changes in the chemical and physical properties of the air, water, and land. And prior to this cruise, I had no clue what that meant.

So when I think about it, I have been an extremely privileged person to have witnessed the workings of a research vessel first-hand, and so I consider it as much an honor as a duty to report even the little I’ve come to understand. It’s like being at an exotic zoo, or better yet in the natural habitat of exotic species. I can finally see the scientific process at its source, before it gets dissolved and diluted in a two-minute news blurb. I’m getting close to the beast, for a scientist is a rare creature: often pale, often shy, sometimes noisy, and sometimes brilliant.

Pages 3 to 20 are about me, the things I like to do, and the things I will like to do when I get older. I’m still working on it. Anyway, thought you’d want to know what I’ve been up to.