My Track Record

[Context: read the previous part or start at the beginning. TW: bad amateur fiction!]

It was Spring Break at Conley College. Gerald headed to the airport, checked in, and boarded his flight to LAX.

“What brings you to Southern California?” asked his perky middle-aged seat-mate, smiling hopefully.

“Oh, I’m visiting my son,” he replied. “How about you?”

“Just heading home after a realtor conference!” she said. “How old is your son?”

“He’s, uh, nine.”

“Oh boy!” she said. “So he doesn’t live with you?”

“Not anymore. My ex basically took him with her when she moved to Thousand Oaks.” This sounded overly dramatic, Gerald thought, as if the divorce had been horribly acrimonious. But maybe it would stop the flow of questions.

“Oh!” she said with a tight-lipped smile. “Well…I hope you enjoy your visit!”

“Thanks,” he said.

She fiddled with her purse and brought out a small book: The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom.

“I’m so excited to finally read this!” she explained. “All my friends love it!”

Gerald was happy to ease her exit from the conversation. “Please feel free to dig in,” he said, gesturing to the book. “It’s, uh, quite a ride.”

She nodded and smiled at Gerald one more time.

For the rest of the flight, seats 23A and 23B were quiet.

* * * * * * * *

Driving a rental car, Gerald pulled up to the faintly familiar address in his rental car and observed the house’s towering edifice. Oh, yeah, he thought — Laura’s second husband was some sort of hotshot surgeon.

He knocked on the door and Laura answered. “Come on in,” she said a bit awkwardly. “I’ll take you to the guest room.” She led him down the hall and opened a door, and he rolled his suitcase into a well-outfitted bedroom while she waited in the hall.

“Jimmy will be home from school in a few minutes,” she said. “And Josie is napping at the moment.” They walked back past the kitchen. “Do you want something to drink?” she asked.

“I’ll take Diet Coke if you have it.”

“Yup, OK.” She handed him a can from the fridge.

“Thanks. So,” Gerald began tentatively, “is there anything new in Jimmy’s world that I should be aware of?”

“Let me see…” said Laura.

“AAAAAAA!” screamed Josie from the second floor.

“Um, I don’t think so,” Laura concluded hastily as she headed upstairs.

Gerald heard getting-up-from-nap sounds above him as he braced himself for Jimmy’s arrival. Rule 1: stay positive. Rule 2: stay calm.

In a moment Jimmy burst through the front door, taller than Gerald remembered, hair longer than Gerald remembered. He noticed Gerald peering out from the kitchen, and stiffened.

“Hey, Jimmy!” said Gerald, trying to sound warm and enthusiastic. He put down the Diet Coke, walked to Jimmy, and hugged him.

Jimmy did not return the hug. “Why are you here?” he said, as if suspicious.

Gerald dropped his arms and sighed. “Did you forget I was coming?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then, I’m sorry to surprise you … but you and your mom and I worked this out together last month. Remember how, last year, you visited me up in Washington during your spring break, but since I was working during your visit, it wasn’t that fun for you?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t fun at al.”

“So based on that, we thought we’d try the opposite approach this time, where you’re still in school but I’m on break. Right?”

“Yeah….”

“So after school this week I can take you to the zoo, or … you could show me your school, or we could go to a basketball game, or…”

“I don’t want to go to the zoo!”

“That’s OK, that’s just an example.”

“I don’t want to go to a basketball game either. I like hockey now!”

“OK, OK.” Gerald was trying to follow Rules 1 and 2, but possibly failing already. “The specific activities that we choose are not especially important to me. The point is just for us to get to spend some time together.”

Jimmy stared at him coldly. “I don’t WANT to spend time together,” he said.

Laura emerged at the bottom of the stairs with Josie in her arms. “James Yamamoto Cutler! Your father traveled a long way –“

“It’s — it’s OK,” Gerald cut in, aiming for a tone of decisive calmness. “So, Jimmy…” Where could he go with this? “So, Jimmy, are you saying that, right at this moment, you can’t think of anything that you’d like to do with me while I’m here?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry.

Gerald, responding instinctively, walked down the hallway, grabbed his suitcase, and came right back. He took a breath.

“OK,” he said to Jimmy after a glance at Laura, “here’s what I think we should do. I’m going to give you a bit of space, Jimmy. I will go find a hotel and unpack there. Meanwhile, I want you to brainstorm with your mom and think of at least one or two things that you are willing to do with me while I’m in town.” He emphasized the word willing, trying to distinguish it from, say, delighted. “OK?”

“OK,” said Jimmy, sounding unenthusiastic but less defiant than before.

“OK?” said Gerald to Laura.

“OK,” said Laura.

“Good,” said Gerald. He walked out the front door, loaded the suitcase into his rental car, got in, and sat crouched in the driver’s seat, staring at the odometer and breathing heavily.

[to be continued]

Thanks to Matt Atwood for his ideas on a draft of this part.

[Context: read the previous part or start at the beginning. TW: bad amateur fiction!]

Gerald was emailing Cissy again. Best to send this during normal work hours, he thought.

To: cciplinski@conley.edu

Subject: Faculty Senate

Cissy, I hope you’re having a good week. If you’re agreeable to this, I’d like to ask you a few questions about your experience in the Faculty Senate — specifically about how disputes between rival factions are resolved (or not). This is not meant as anything other than me learning a bit more about campus governance. I’d be happy to send you the questions via email or to ask them in person, whichever you’d prefer. Thanks for considering this request. –Gerald

She wrote back in a couple hours: Sure, no problem. In person would be best for me. Cafe Nation tomorrow at 4, like last week?

Gerald quickly accepted: Great, thanks, see you then.

* * * * * * *

When he arrived at Cafe Nation, she was there just as she had been the week before, sipping her drink and banging away on her laptop. He waved, ordered, collected his mocha, and joined her. She closed her laptop and looked up.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“So, you want to know more about the Faculty Senate, eh?”

“Well, sort of,” Gerald. “I mean, I know this is odd, given that I don’t want to join the Faculty Senate, but … You know that old saying, if you can make it here in New York you can make it anywhere? I’m currently considering the idea that if a conflict-resolution strategy works in the Faculty Senate then it will work anywhere. I know that sounds ridiculous, even to me, but I don’t think there’s any harm in considering the idea and seeing where it leads.”

“I agree with that in principle,” Cissy said, “though in practice I’m not sure that our Faculty Senate should be used as a model for anything. Ever.”

“Noted! And yet — and I mean this in a purely professional sense — I’ve heard from multiple people that you seem to be able to get things done even in that quite possibly toxic environment.”

Cissy started to speak, but he cut her off: “There’s no use denying it; people agree that you’re an effective Senate President!”

“Actually,” Cissy said pointedly, “I was trying to agree with you. I am pretty good.” She punctuated the claim with a sip of her drink.

“Oh — sorry. Anyway, given your recognized skill in dealing with adversarial groups, my general question for you is, how does one do that? How does one manage to avoid gridlock and move things forward in ways that most people will find satisfactory? Like, for example, you can always hold a vote, but then 49% of the people might be unhappy about the outcome. So, for keeping the peace between rival factions, are there any good ways of, um, supplementing democracy?”

Cissy peered at him with what might have been a mix of curiosity and amusement.

“I don’t think I asked that very well,” Gerald said. “Let me try again. Let’s say, as a very general model, that you’re presiding over Group 1 and Group 2, and they’re supposed to agree on a solution to a particular problem, but Group 1 prefers Solution A, whatever that might be, while Group 2 prefers Solution B. Aside from just holding a vote — which might be the best option — are there other realistic ways to resolve the situation?”

“OK, I follow you now,” said Cissy. “You’re essentially asking about game theory for governance.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” said Gerald. “I think so.”

“There must be a rich literature on this,” said Cissy. “But, to be honest, I haven’t found the time to read any of it. I’ve just figured some things out empirically.” She took another sip. “I like the way you set up the model. So Group 1 wants Solution A, and Group 2 wants Solution B, right?”

“Yes. 1-A, 2-B. Brilliant nomenclature, I know.”

“Simplicity is good. OK, alternatives to voting. Here we go.”

Gerald had a visceral sense of her mind springing into action. Her brain firing on all cylinders was a thing to behold, he thought.

“First,” she said, “are A and B the only realistic solutions? Has there been adequate brainstorming for identifying additional possibilities? Sometimes there’s a Solution C that Groups 1 and 2 would both prefer if they knew it was an option. Some of my biggest ‘wins’, so to speak, have come from noticing solutions that hadn’t previously been on the table. And–” She interrupted herself. “Sorry, is this the sort of perspective you want?”

“Yes!” said Gerald. “Very much so. Please continue.”

“OK,” she said. “Here’s another one. Another subtlety that isn’t necessarily captured by voting is that Group 1 might care much more deeply about the issue than Group 2, or vice versa. So if Group 1 is a smaller group, but is adamant that Solution A is the best, while Group 2’s numerous members all like Solution B but don’t care as much, maybe you arrange a trade in which Group 1 gets its way on this issue and Group 2 gets its way on some other issue that it really cares about.”

“Mmm,” said Gerald. “That seems obvious now that you’ve explained it, but I probably wouldn’t have thought of it otherwise.”

“Yeah,” said Cissy. “That one is especially useful when dealing with, say, our geology department. They have a fetish for field trips — which makes sense for their discipline, I suppose — so, as long as we protect their field-trip budget and their field-trip vehicles, they’ll go along with almost anything else.”

“Huh!” Gerald was amused. He said, “I wonder what tricks you have for getting the biologists to fall in line.” He held up his hands. “But I’m not asking, so don’t tell me!”

“OK, next — we should mention the most obvious type of compromise,” Cissy continued. “Maybe there is a solution somewhere between A and B — a ‘Solution A-minus’ or a ‘Solution B-plus’ — that makes both groups reasonably happy.”

“Right,” said Gerald. “That one I did anticipate. Along with another one that I’m not sure actually happens in the real world, which is the following. In your experience, if Group 1 prefers A and Group 2 prefers B, does one group ever simply win over the other group via argumentation? As in, ‘you’re wrong and we’re right and here’s why’?”

“No,” said Cissy flatly. “With very rare exceptions for when one side gently begins with, ‘we’re curious as to why you prefer that solution; can you tell us more about that?’ And then really listens to the response, and tries to meet the other side where they are…. And if the other side is open-minded, too, and if the two sides eventually recognize that they have certain values in common, then maybe some persuasion becomes possible.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t seem like a winning bet,” Gerald said.

“It certainly isn’t,” said Cissy. “However, I’ve also seen a variation of that where the odds are slightly better. Let’s imagine that Groups 1 and 2 are merged, as when two academic programs merge into one. If people accept the reality of the merger, and if they also believe that they should get to know their new group-mates better, there could be some good-faith dialogue that leads to more mutual understanding and more alignment of preferences. It’s basically a desert-island scenario: if you’re stuck with these other people, maybe you should learn to cooperate.”

“OK, that makes sense,” Gerald said, “but how often do groups actually merge like that?” He took a final swig of his mocha.

“Sometimes,” Cissy said, “a temporary merger can be arranged. For example, you could set up a weekend retreat for the rival groups. A temporary desert island, if you will. Of course, that could go either way. By the end of the weekend, the groups might be getting along better, or they might be at each other’s throats worse than ever….”

“Right — the reality-show approach,” said Gerald.

“And then there’s one last important one, I think,” Cissy said. “Sometimes people just need to realize that the problem that they’re fighting over isn’t really a problem. Or won’t be a problem for long, anyway. So there’s no need to proceed with a divisive vote, or other divisive options.”

“Is that something you see … with any regularity?” Gerald asked.

“Oh yeah — all the time.”

“Can you give me an example?”

“Sure. Let’s see… Do you remember President Rambo?”

“You speak, of course, of Dr. Carson Rambo, the thirteenth president of Conley College. With a name like that, how could I forget him? Well, that and his dramatic exit.”

“Yes — so you probably remember how the student newspaper caught him having an affair with that dean. What was her name? Helga? Hester?”

“Helen,” Gerald said. “Helen….” He snapped his fingers. “Helen Hitzenberger!”

“Yes, that was it. Good old Helen Hitzenberger,” said Cissy. “So — a lot of the faculty were outraged when the affair came to light, and they were pushing for a no-confidence vote and various ways of expressing their disapproval. And others were like, ‘well, we don’t know the full story yet, let’s not rush things.’ And overheated emails were sent, and impassioned speeches were made, despite the fact that Rambo basically knew that his days were numbered and basically accepted that he would need to resign. So we gave him a couple of weeks to make an official announcement, and for an acting president to be appointed, that was that. There was no need to keep fighting over something that was about to become a non-issue.”

“The Rambo Rule,” Gerald suggested. “‘Sometimes it’s better not to fight’.”

“I like it!” said Cissy.

[to be continued]

[Context: read the previous part or start at the beginning. TW: bad amateur fiction!]

After an amicable email exchange in which Gerald and Cissy and Hector reluctantly agreed to stop meeting as a group — Hector was surprised by Gerald’s confession, but was amenable to the adjustment — Gerald was once again sitting only with Morris in the Incredible Shrinking Theater.

They discussed the ongoing changes in therapy format, and settled on a plan: Morris would look for other group-session opportunities for Gerald, but, for now, they would do all of their meetings one-on-one.

Then it was time for the real work to resume.

“So,” said Morris, “Can you summarize where we left off last time, and any additional thoughts you’ve had since then?”

Gerald’s brain had been working overtime on this, so he knew what he wanted to say.

“Yeah. Last time we talked about axes of motivation. There were two different axes that came up. One axis ranged from doing something for personal fulfillment to doing it to solve a problem of general importance. And the other axis went from serving the people in one’s inner circle to serving those in one’s extended network.”

“Good!” said Morris. “That’s what I took away from that session too.”

“I’ve since started calling each axis an Axis of Praxis,” Gerald continued. “Because that’s easier to say than ‘axis of motivation’, and because an axis represents a practical choice. Where along this axis do I want to live? Where should I position myself? Which seems like a really hard question, especially when you’re trying to find solutions for both axes simultaneously.”

Gerald stood up and addressed the empty seats surrounding the stage. “It’s like a really hard math problem, with my life hanging in the balance!” he screeched. Then, more quietly, to Morris: “Sorry — this place brings out the drama in me, evidently.”

“It’s OK,” said Morris. “Let it out.”

Gerald sat back down nonetheless.

“Anyway,” he resumed, “I recently brought up some of this stuff with a colleague, Herb Stevens; I’m not sure if you know him…”

“Oh, sure, Herb is great!” Morris offered.

“Yeah, isn’t he great?” Gerald concurred. “Anyway, I thought Herb, being so smart and humble and everything, might have some relevant ideas. And he did, of course, but … the main thing I took away from that conversation was that there was at least one additional axis: an axis of trying to plan and direct one’s legacy versus letting it evolve organically. And since then, whenever I’ve tried to think about this stuff, I just start thinking of more and more axes, and I get overwhelmed and depressed.”

Gerald got up, walked to the on-stage flip chart, and wrote:

inner circle — outer circle

fun — importance

planned legacy — unplanned legacy

self — others

logic — emotions

seek pleasure — avoid guilt

As a small joke to himself, he added classical — pop at the bottom, then crossed it off.

Gerald paused and capped the marker. “There have been others, too,” he said. “Anyway, you get the idea. Just one friggin’ axis after another — a tangle of irreconcilable opposites.” He sighed. “I know I’m feeling depressed and giving this an extra-negative spin at the moment — but I don’t think I’m completely wrong, either.”

Morris looked sympathetic. “Gerald,” he said, “I admire your clarity of thought on this. And, as you did last time, you are noticing some absolutely foundational and formidable challenges, and noticing that there may not be a lot of easy solutions.” He lowered his voice a bit. “But I promise you that we will find solutions of some kind! And I have some initial suggestions… But before we get to those, I’d like you to take this week to do your own brainstorming, uninfluenced by me, about finding a path forward. Would that be OK?”

“Yes, I can do that,” Gerald said.

“Great,” said Morris. “Don’t try to come up with a unified theory of everything. Just think about possible strategies for getting started. What might that first step look like?”

They discussed whether a reading assignment would be helpful as a catalyst for new thinking. Gerald admitted that, at present, he wasn’t inclined to start a new book, but he wrote down Morris’s suggestions in case he changed his mind.

And then, as he left the theater and unlocked his bike and started the ride home, he had a getting-started idea — a strange idea, but one that might be “just crazy enough to work,” as certain movie characters would say. His mood lightened.

Maybe he could harvest some lessons from another setting where seemingly irreconcilable demands threatened to bring progress to a halt. A setting where both sides of many issues often seemed compelling, or at least inflexible. A setting where robust, prolonged arguments didn’t necessarily lead to any particular actions. A setting where smart people struggled to make decisions of any kind and often seemed dysfunctional. A setting like the Faculty Senate!

Gerald himself was unfamiliar with the inner workings of the Faculty Senate. He needed a guide who could explain them to him — someone who had confronted the contradictions of this challenging environment and who had somehow forced some progress to be made.

Fortunately, he knew just such a person.

[Update: the story continues with part 27.]

[Context: read the previous part or start at the beginning. TW: bad amateur fiction!]

Herb nodded and started to leave. Gerald sensed an opportunity slipping away.

“Hey, Herb,” Gerald said, “since you’re here… Do you have a minute?”

Herb turned around slowly; at 68, he was still physically healthy but not exactly dynamic.

“Sure, Gerry,” he said genially. “What’s on your mind?”

“Can I, ah, ask you about your scientific legacy?” Gerald inquired. He sounded a bit like a teen asking a parent for the car keys.

“OK, sure.” Herb seemed surprised but unperturbed. “Go ahead!”

“Herb,” said Gerald, “I don’t know you all that well, but, to me, you’ve always seemed like someone who is at peace with who you are and where you are. So I guess I’m wondering whether you think you’re changing the world, and whether that’s important to you.” He added apologetically, “Basically, if you could tell me the meaning of life, clearly and concisely, that would be fantastic.”

Herb chuckled softly. “You’re right that, in general, I try to appreciate whatever moment I happen to be in the middle of,” he began. “And I’d say that’s partly because I don’t think too hard about my legacy — to use your word. But,” he added, “that hasn’t always been the case.”

Herb massaged the top of his head as if trying to find the hair that used to be there. “When I was young,” he said, “really young — in my 20s, in grad school — I absolutely did strive to do high-profile research that would impact future generations. It was an explicit goal.” He seemed to take a moment to marvel at his younger self.

“But then as I settled into faculty life,” Herb continued, “I realized that striving too hard for a certain legacy might be bad for the legacy. It’s sort of like… OK, bear with me here. I was still single at the time, and I was very lonely, and I wondered whether I’d ever be able to find a mate — a husband. But … you know how people say that if your goal is to find a long-term partner, it’s not good to be too focused on that goal? That you should try to be the best version of your single self, and that that will be attractive to the right people if and when they come along?”

Gerald nodded, wondering whether he was currently in compliance with that advice.

“I tried to take that to heart, and, meanwhile, as I pondered my professional future, I decided that a good scientific legacy might be achieved in a similar fashion. Be a good person, do good work, and the legacy will hopefully take care of itself.”

“Yes,” said Gerald, “I can see how that might work well.”

Herb smiled. “Good,” he said. “I’m afraid I have even more to say, though. As I continued to age — as one does — my thinking evolved further, toward a sort of quasi-Buddhism. You’ve probably heard me, in various meetings and conversations, emphasize our connections with others — with students, with colleagues, with the buildings and grounds of the campus. These days that’s where my focus is — not on my specific role in the world, exactly, but on my connections. I try to recognize those connections and nurture them and appreciate them. And the more connected I am to others, the less inclined I am to think in terms of my own individual contributions to the world. Others have described this as the ego sort of dissolving into the surroundings.”

Gerald was impressed by this explanation. “That’s … kind of beautiful, Herb,” he said. “I’m not sure whether that philosophy could ever work for me — but it might.”

“Even for me,” Herb said, “it takes a certain mindfulness. Embracing interconnectedness doesn’t come naturally to most of us because we’ve been trained to approach everything as reductionists. What are the key components? How do we separate them and study each one in isolation? Even ecologists like me are supposed to think this way, to some extent.”

Gerald kept nodding.

“I have to remind myself periodically that the scientific method, in and of itself, doesn’t necessarily lead to happiness,” Herb concluded. “We don’t call it ‘the happiness method’.”

Herb lingered in the doorway, where he had been this whole time.

“Um, I’m sorry I never really invited you in,” said Gerald. “Anyway — thank you! I won’t trouble you further, but I … I really like what you’ve said, and I’m going to think about it some more. Thanks, Herb.”

“Anytime, Gerry.” Herb gave Gerald a final smile and ambled away.

[Update: the story continues with part 26.]

[Context: read the previous part or start at the beginning. TW: bad amateur fiction!]

Gerald exhaled forcefully and began a late-evening email.

To: cciplinski@conley.edu

Subject: coffee

Hi Cissy — I hope you enjoyed yesterday’s conversation as much as I did. While I’m intrigued by your idea of a campus global health center, I think that perhaps I should decline to be closely involved. It’s for a super-awkward reason that might make you uncomfortable, and if so I sincerely apologize. Basically, while I love the idea of working with you on this, I fear that that would be problematic because  — I don’t know how else to say this — I would like to ask you out (assuming that you’re “available,” but not knowing that). I’m terribly sorry if this interest is unwelcome and, if so, I won’t speak of it again. –Gerald

Gerald slept poorly, then got up early and made a few futile checks of his messages. Amidst his anguish, he took a bit of comfort in feeling that he had done the right thing, or at least a non-horrible thing. It wasn’t sexual harassment to politely ask once if it was someone from a different department, right?

He arrived at work. Still no response. Off to teach lab, where students would record and analyze electrocardiograms and discus symptoms of a “broken heart.” Very funny, God, thought Gerald. You see, crap like this is why I don’t believe in you.

After lab Cissy’s response was waiting in his inbox. He clenched his jaw; this was even worse than opening his end-of-semester student evaluations. OK, the moment of truth was here….

Gerald, I appreciate your message, I really do. I’m currently seeing someone, but if that changes someday I promise to let you know. 🙂 Given the present situation, I agree that it would be best to avoid extensive professional collaborations between us. Take care, C.

“Gaaaaaah!” was the sound that came out of Gerald mouth. It was loud enough that Herb Stevens, his ecology colleague from a neighboring office, came by to see if everything was OK.

“Geez, sorry to be so loud!” said Gerald with embarrassment. “It’s nothing, really — just another, uh, rejection letter. You know how it is.” He declined to elaborate further.

[Update: the story continues with part 25.]

[Context: read the previous part or start at the beginning. TW: bad amateur fiction!]

It was time for another one-on-one session with Morris. “How are you doing?” he asked.

“Well, uh…” Gerald began. “Cissy recently said to me something like, ‘I can’t tell if you’re coming apart, or coming alive.’ And I don’t think I can tell either. How’s that for an answer?”

“You get full points for honesty,” Morris said. “Do you want to talk more about that? Or should we return to the loss-of-youthful-idealism theme that we were working on in our last solo session?”

“Yeah, let’s dive back into that,” said Gerald. “You had asked me to think about where my youthful optimism went. I have at least a partial answer for you — maybe even a pretty good answer.”

“When I got into this area of neglected-tropical-diseases research,” he recalled, “I was fairly naive. I sort of assumed that we didn’t have enough of these drugs because Europe and the U.S. didn’t care enough about these diseases. And while there’s some truth in that, I didn’t realize just how hard it is to develop drugs for any disease.” He paused as if moving from one slide to the next.

“On top of that, I realized that the best opportunities to complete satisfying little discrete projects were not ones that necessarily led to drug-development progress per se. So I began to focus on these adjacent projects, rather than the drug development itself, which, along with the general difficulty of doing drug development, pretty much ensured that I would never contribute real progress toward new drugs.”

He summarized: “In the end, the things I was able to do competently did not feel that important, and the thing that was really important was not something I had the vision or the courage to attempt.”

Morris listened to all of this intently. There was a moment of silence. Then Morris said, slowly, “I could be wrong . . . but to me this sounds like hard-won wisdom that you were able to gain only from working in this area for a bunch of years.”

“Yeah,” said Gerald. “I think that’s reasonable. It’s not as if I look back and go, oh geez, what an idiot I was, thinking that I could help create these great new drugs. I did the best I could at the time based on what I understood at the time.”

Gerald gave a sad smile. “But now I do know better,” he said. “So what should I do now that I know better? That’s the question I’ve been asking myself lately. Well, one of the questions.”

“Right,” said Morris. “That’s a hard question, and a vital one.” He cocked his head. “Would you say, then, that there’s a conflict, or at least a tension, between what you enjoy doing, or at least are comfortable doing, from day to day, and what seems most important to the world at large?”

“I think so,” said Gerald.

“Well, congratulations,” said Morris. “You have identified one of the fundamental paradoxes of modern life. We all have a need to enjoy our daily existence, but many of us also feel called to do something with long-term impact. Learning how to manage those competing desires is tricky, and individual-specific, and may in some cases take a lifetime — but being cognizant of the paradox, and explicitly acknowledging it, is a hugely significant first step.”

“You know,” said Gerald, “I think you expressed that well, and it reminds me of something else that’s been rattling around in my head lately. I’ve been asking, ‘Whom, beyond oneself, does one serve?’ And I think of myself, and probably everyone, as having at least two circles of service. There’s an inner circle of family members, close friends, students you teach directly, et cetera. And then there’s an outer circle of people we don’t directly interact with, but who might nonetheless be influenced by us — for example, if we write a textbook that is used by people at another school.”

Morris continued to listen intently. Gerald continued speaking.

“I think there’s a tension — similar to what you were just describing — between serving our inner circle and serving the outer circle. All of us owe a lot to our inner circle, but many of us also want to have an influence beyond that — an influence that ripples out into the outer circle. But it’s hard to simultaneously serve both well. The more time you spend caring for your own child, who is obviously in your inner circle and who obviously deserves that from you, the less time you have to do something great for the world at large. And vice versa. I think.”

“Right again, Gerald,” Morris said. “That is, for sure, another key paradox that is absolutely worth trying to solve for yourself, to the extent that it is solvable.” He formed a wry expression. “We should be able to get to the bottom of it in another one hundred to two hundred sessions. Three hundred at most.”

Gerald snorted. “I thought that a tenured professorship was the most stable job on earth,” he said, “but Morris, that crown might actually be yours.”

[Update: the story continues with part 24.]

[Context: read the previous part or start at the beginning. TW: bad amateur fiction!]

When Gerald arrived at Cafe Nation, Cissy already had a table and appeared to be busy on her laptop, with her beverage in one hand and her mouse in the other.

“I hope I’m not interrupting any lyrical breakthroughs,” Gerald said as he approached.

“Ha!” she said. “There is no chance of that whatsoever.”

“Because you don’t have lyrical breakthroughs?” he asked. “Or because you’ve already had so many breakthroughs that the rap is already done?”

“The first option,” she said.

“OK,” said Gerald. “To be honest, I couldn’t tell from our email exchange whether you were actually interested in writing a rap, or whether you were just humoring me.” He added quickly, “Either of which would be totally fine, by the way.”

“To be honest,” she said, “I do not want to write or perform a rap, with you or without you” — Gerald’s eyelids flickered — “but I do want to run a different collaboration idea by you. But do you want to order something first?”

“Sure, let me take care of that,” said Gerald. “I order like Sally in the movie When Harry Met Sally… so it may take a minute.”

He strode briskly to the counter. He kind of wanted to back up his comment with an extra-complicated order, but all he really wanted was a grande mocha, so he ordered that, then hovered awkwardly until it was ready.

“OK, so what’s your non-rap collaboration idea?” Gerald asked upon returning. He tried to sound casual, though he was dying to know.

“All right,” said Cissy. “I don’t know all that much about your research, but it relates to drug discovery for neglected tropical diseases, right?”

“Right. That’s a very good encapsulation.”

“OK, good. Can you tell me more?”

“Sure. How much biology do you know, or want to know?”

“Well,” said Cissy, “my ex was a biologist — and still is, I suppose. Anyway, he used to provide me with regular refreshers and extensions of my Biology 101 knowledge.” She gave a half-smile. “He was a very good lecturer, you see.”

Gerald, titillated by the mention of an ex, tried to match her half-smile. “I’ll bet,” he said. “But was he also a good listener?” He quickly backpedaled. “Sorry, no need to answer that; it’s none of my business.”

“No,” she said, “it’s OK. I’d say he was…” She seemed to be trying to be fair. “…not good enough,” she concluded.

“So,” said Gerald, “it seems like you actually know a fair bit of biology, but….” He took a shot at playfulness: “…you might also hate biologists?”

Cissy’s eyes twinkled. “I don’t hate them,” she said. “I’m just disappointed in them.”

“Ouch!” he said. “Anyway, moving right along… When I set up my lab here, I decided to focus on a couple of simple undergrad-friendly techniques that we’d be able use over and over to make progress with limited resources. In brief, we use bacteria to produce enzymes from various parasites, and then we purify those enzymes and measure their catalytic activity and see whether they can be inhibited. The practical goal is to find enzymes that can be inhibited by safe and selective drugs, killing the parasite and curing the infection. So far so good?”

“Yeah,” said Cissy. “Sounds fantastic! So how many diseases have you cured so far?”

“Uh, zero.”

“Hmm. Disappointing,” she said with a slight smile.

“Yeah, the biologists are letting you down again, I’m afraid.”

“Yup. But,” she added perkily, “let’s not dwell on that.”

“As you may or may not be aware,” she continued, “my own research interests include the effectiveness of public-private partnerships, which seem to be backing a lot of the drug-discovery work for neglected diseases.”

Gerald nodded, declining to explain that he had been googling her a lot lately. Where is she going with this?

“And our colleague in Anthropology, Stephanie Hurd, has expertise in cross-cultural views of medicine and so forth. So it occurred to me that we might have a good nucleus for starting some sort of campus Center for Global Health. A program where students could do interdisciplinary research with multiple advisors. So I wanted to run that idea by you and see what you thought. Sorry for luring you here under false pretenses, though!”

“No worries,” Gerald said. “I appreciate you luring me out of my sad little office. Anyway, my first reaction is … I think it could be great! It could be a way of jumping on the interdisciplinarity bandwagon and the global health bandwagon, but in a good way. The administration would probably love it, and students might love it too.”

“Yes, I agree. But, Gerry, would you love it?”

Gerald emitted a short laughter-like sound.

“You mean, like, would I want to be involved as a core faculty member or something? Boy, I don’t know. I mean, I am kind of sick of my research right now, and I’ve been wondering if I should move in a new direction…. But, I don’t know, collaborating with social scientists? I suppose that could be … fun …” He trailed off noncommittally.

Cissy leaned toward him. “Would you like to say more about being sick of your research?” she asked.

“Oh, you know, it’s mostly what we’ve been talking about with Morris,” he said. We work so hard to get things done, to get things published — but to what end? I feel as if what I’ve done in the end is proven that I’m smart enough and persistent enough to get the thing published — as opposed to the publication actually being useful to others.”

“Yeah.” Now Cissy looked sad on his behalf.

“It would be melodramatic and over-the-top to say that I sacrificed my marriage for my career,” he added, “but that’s at least partially true. So I can’t help but wonder, sometimes: was it worth it?” He coughed. “I’m sorry for oversharing.”

“Hey, I started it,” she noted. “By bringing up my non-listening ex.”

“Yes, that’s true,” said Gerald. “But we’re even now.”

[Update: the story continues with part 23.]

[Context: read the previous part or start at the beginning. TW: bad amateur fiction!]

Back at home that evening, Gerald thought of his ghost-town lab tour earlier in the day and considered the value of his scientific output to date.

To his colleagues, and according to his CV, he had a strong track record. He had gotten some small-to-medium-size grants and subcontracts here and there, and when encouraged or forced to give a departmental seminar he always seemed to have new data and new ideas. Above all, he had made it into some decent peer-reviewed journals with papers that were cited by similar papers in similar journals. At a small college like his, that was about the best that you could hope for: supervise undergraduate projects, publish the ones that worked out well, and get cited for those successes.

But were his publications actually advancing the field of biology? Or were they just demonstrations of competence without any particular real-world value?

Gerald had not previously given much attention to how his papers were being cited in the literature. He decided to start with Chernoff & Cutler, the paper based on Lois’ undergraduate thesis. It was a nice little study — an early sign of Lois’ strong scientific instincts — showing that, when their enzyme of interest was given a hexahistidine tag (to make purification easier) at either the N-terminus or the C-terminus, the enzyme kinetics were almost identical, suggesting that the tag did not greatly affect the enzyme’s 3D structure or function.

Since its publication in the Journal of Biological Chemistry a decade ago, C&C had been cited 51 times, a respectable total that made this paper one of his more “popular” ones outside of his graduate and postdoctoral work. But why was it being cited? With Google Scholar as his starting point, Gerald tried to access each of the 51 articles.

The first article could not be accessed online.

The second article cited C&C in support of the general point that the enzyme’s pathway was of interest as a potential drug target. A true but obvious point also made by dozens of other papers.

The third article incorrectly referred to C&C as characterizing an enzyme that they hadn’t actually studied.

The fourth article cited C&C as using a certain wash buffer — not a buffer they had invented or tested against alternatives, just one they had used!

The fifth article mentioned C&C’s Km value for its enzyme’s substrate, then noted with apparent satisfaction that this was “within two orders of magnitude” of the present study’s value.

The sixth and seventh articles used C&C more substantively because they were subsequent papers also coauthored by Gerald.

The eighth article included C&C in its reference list but didn’t refer to the paper in the main text.

After a few more depressing rounds of this, Gerald switched to a more recent paper of his, Ocampo et al., where they had coined a phrase (“druggability paradox”) that Gerald had hoped would catch on as a concept. Had others picked up on that idea and cited them for it? Alas, they had not.

The best that could be said was that other researchers were aware of and acknowledged these papers’ existence. That aside, the citations were tangential to the new studies; the citations’ main purpose seemed to be fulfillment of expectations that the Introduction and Discussion sections be stuffed full of references to somewhat related research. Gerald had to admit that he often cited other papers in this superficial way. He had hoped that others’ usage of his papers would be more meaningful, but this did not appear to be the case.

[Update: the story continues with part 22.]

[Context: read the previous part or start at the beginning. TW: bad amateur fiction!]

For the first time since the fall, Gerald walked around the inside of his lab. Even at a snail’s pace, it didn’t take him long to go up one side and down the other, past the freezers, fridge, HPLC, and spectrophotometer, past the pipetting stations, past the pair of desks. The room had been dark for, what was it now, five months? Was this a venue in decline, or was it just lying fallow before the next surge of productivity?

Gerald wasn’t sure, but it was almost time to advertise summer and fall research opportunities for students.  Given the large number of biology majors who wanted to pursue lab research, he felt obligated to make some project available to somebody, rather than forcing his colleagues to do all of the mentoring. But what kind of mentor would he be if he was not invested in making progress?

Well, he thought, he still had his collaborator’s V-series inhibitors that could be tested against the Plasmodium and human acetyltransferases. Or were they aminotransferases? He would have to check. Anyway, he could probably squeeze a thesis project out of that if he had to…. And he could probably exploit his department chair’s sympathy to postpone such decisions for a bit longer…

His thoughts returned to Cissy. He started constructing an email to her, revising it and re-revising it until it had just the right breezy, dashed-off tone: Hey, how’s that econ rap coming along? Let me know if I can be of assistance. 🙂

He still needed a cute subject header. Mic-ro-economics? No, she might not recognize “mic” as meaning “microphone.” How about Hip-Hop-onomics? That seemed safer, but that second hyphen had to go. OK, Hip-Hoponomics. Done!

Her response arrived later that morning: Having trouble finding good rhymes for “Keynesian.” May need to enlist a “feat.” collaborator. You available?

He immediately set to work on a response, now aiming for a gentle ramp-up: Katy Perry is on my case to help her out with her next single — some sort of anthem about a skin-tight lab coat, I think — but I can probably fit you in as well. Shall we meet at Cafe Nation to discuss? 4pm most days would work for me, or anytime on Thursdays.

He forced himself to wait an hour before sending it.

An hour after that, he had her response: Tomorrow at 4 would be great.

He thought YES! — followed shortly by What am I doing? These days that question was popping up with alarming frequency. In this instance, though, he thought he might have a good start on an answer.

[Update: the story continues with part 21.]

[Context: read the previous part or start at the beginning. TW: bad amateur fiction!]

“So, welcome back,” said Morris to the trio, now that they were all assembled on the stage. “How has your week been so far?”

“Well,” said Cissy, “I’ve been kind of cold standing here in the enormous shadow of Doctor G-Cut, but I’m coping as well as I can….”

“Oh, right,” said Morris. “The rapping biologist.”

“What?” said Hector.

“Haven’t you heard? Gerry’s rhyme-spewing alter-ego is now a big YouTube star,” Cissy said.

“Oh, please.” Gerald wasn’t about to let on that he was enjoying the attention. “One of my students posted a grainy video from class….and it has gotten about, I don’t know, fifty thousand views, or whatever.”

“So,” said Hector, “fifty thousand people have engaged with something that you did? I would kill for that level of interest in one of my pieces.” He paused. “Not literally, of course.”

“Fifty thousand people,” said Gerald, “have had a laugh at the expense of a strange biology professor coming apart at the seams. I’m not sure that’s the legacy you’re hoping for, Hector.”

Morris jumped in. “All right,” he said, “let us indeed turn this discussion toward Hector’s legacy. Hector, can you tell us about what you’ve been thinking about this past week?”

“Sure,” said Hector. “So… I’ve been researching and writing a book for the last few years, and… Well, is it fair to assume that none of you know all that much about the literary genre of magical realism?”

“Well,” said Gerald, “I once watched The Legend of Bagger Vance. Does that count?”

“I’ve read One Hundred Years of Solitude,” added Cissy. “But not much else.”

“OK,” said Hector, “suffice it to say that I’ve spent the last five years writing a book that hardly anybody will read — unless I assign it for my own classes, in which case I’ll feel like a schmuck.”

“Right,” said Morris. “So last week I asked you, Hector, to reflect on how it might feel to release a book that has a very small but potentially passionate readership. As an additional step in that direction, I want us to now imagine ourselves to be at a book-release event where your audience is quite small, but where those present are genuinely excited to be there and to read your book. So can we all try to enact that situation with as much sincerity and enthusiasm as possible?”

There were nods of agreement.

“OK. Fantastic,” said Morris. “Now, Hector, what’s the title of your book? Or the working title, anyway?”

“One Hundred Years of Magical Realism,” said Hector a bit sheepishly.

“OK!” Morris switched into his public speaking voice. “I’d like to welcome you all to this celebration of One Hundred Years of Magical Realism, a brand-new book by Hector Vargas Gomez, a Professor of English at Conley College.”

Cissy and Gerald clapped and whistled, attempting to recreate the sound of a larger crowd.

“Professor,” Morris continued, “I believe your last book was kind of a reexamination of Don Quixote, was it not?” Hector nodded, looking pleased that Morris knew this. “So then this new book would seem — from the outside, at least — to be a bit of a departure for you. How did you get from that book to this one?”

“Well,” Hector began, “about a decade ago, my department — the English Department — was doing a big review of its curriculum, with an eye toward diversifying our offerings so that we could stop being so focused on, you know, Shakespeare and Homer and Faulkner and so forth. And that led some of us, myself included, to read more outside of our usual comfort zones in the hope of figuring out what non-canonical stuff we might want to incorporate. And I found myself really enjoying a bunch of different books in this genre, magical realism, that I hadn’t taken very seriously up to that point. I had read Garcia Marquez and Rushdie, of course, but I discovered some others — like this Polish psychologist, Olga Tokarczuk, who’s very very good. So I kept reading and teaching in this area until I realized that I might have a solid foundation for a book.”

Gerald raised his hand and spoke. “As you know, words sometimes have very different meanings in academic circles than they do in everyday life. In my field of biology, for example, my students routinely refer to the lower limb as ‘the leg’, not realizing that the strict anatomical definition of ‘leg’ is only from the knee to the ankle. So, for you, does ‘magical realism’ mean more or less what we non-English professors would think it means? Or do you use a more technical or more restricted definition?”

“I think the term is nicely accessible,” said Hector. “You have a premise that is realistic or even pedestrian, you sprinkle in some magical or fantastical elements, and — presto! — you have magical realism, more or less.”

“The way you’re describing it,” Cissy said, “it sounds as though it would be relatively easy to experiment with writing in this genre. Is that something that your students do much of? Or any of?”

“As a matter of fact,” said Hector, “one upshot of the departmental curriculum revision was that I started offering a course in reading and writing magical realism. This was unusual because, in English, we generally have literature-reading courses on the one hand and creative writing courses on the other, taught by different faculty who have expertise in one or the other. But in the first half of this course we sample some different authors, constantly asking the question of, what is accomplished in each story by the inclusion of the unrealistic elements? And then in the second half of the course, the students give this a shot themselves by developing their own magical realism stories. It’s been amazing to see what the students come up with. Last semester, one student wrote a story in which the magical aspect was simply that, whenever there was a moment when the protagonist could conceivably have either good luck or bad luck, the most probable outcome was always the one that actually occurred, every single time. And eventually the protagonist figured that out and had to decide how to make use of this knowledge. It was quite funny, but it also included some profound exploration of the concept of free will….”

They continued in this manner for another 25 minutes. Gerald thought the questions they generated were excellent, considering their lack of preparation; in any case, Hector had plenty to say in response. Finally, as Gerald was about to ask Hector about his writing habits and rituals, Morris closed out the scene.

“Great work, everyone!” Morris exulted. “Now, Hector, how was that for you? Please be as honest as you can. I don’t think anyone’s feelings will be hurt if you found us less than ideal as an audience.”

Hector appeared to be blinking back tears. “No, no,” he protested. “One could not ask for a better audience. I know it was just a simulation, but it felt real. Very real. You guys….”

“I’m glad you felt that way,” Morris continued. “However, I also must ask: did the size of the audience matter? Were you thinking about that? Did it affect your experience?”

“I’d have to say no, not really,” admitted Hector. “Not once we got past the first couple of questions.”

Morris pressed on. “I don’t want to be too heavy-handed here,” he said, “but do you think this scene gave you any insight into this issue we’ve been discussing — this issue of producing work that may only be of interest to a few people?”

“Yeah, I think I see where you’re going with this,” said Hector. “The thing about audiences is — well, you have the quantitative aspects of it, like how many copies of the book are sold and how many people come to the talk, and then you have the qualitative aspects, like how does it feel to be interacting with these people? And…and I think it’s easy to get depressed about the quantitative side, even though the qualitative side can be really great.”

Hector took a look around at his colleagues, then continued. “It’s kind of like teaching, I guess. If you hold a senior seminar with twelve students, you don’t see it as a failure because there are only twelve students. You mostly think about the rich interactions that you’re having with those twelve. And you wish that all of your courses could be like that!” Gerald nodded and smiled. “Amen to that!” said Cissy.

There was a moment of silence, and then Morris jumped in apologetically. “I’m afraid that’s all the baring of souls we have time for today,” he said. “Gerry and Cissy, you’re on deck for next time, OK?”

“I can’t wait,” said Gerald. He was only half-kidding.

[Update: the story continues with part 20.]