This afternoon I was having lunch with a group of psychology graduate students at another local university where I am partaking in some professional enrichment (i.e., suffering through a statistics class I should have mastered while in grad school rather than during the busiest and most vulnerable time of my fledgling career). They are a very friendly bunch and they graciously welcome me into their little group when I don't have to rush off to be a grown-up scientist elsewhere. They seem happy, and they're talkative and vivacious-somehow grad school has not completely sucked their will to live. But it's early yet. And I digress. Anyway, one of the girls said to me, "Isn't this a crazy bunch?". I chuckled, because this little muffin doesn't know from crazy.
You see, this sweet child didn't come from a department where a student literally had a psychotic break during a formal departmental presentation of her dissertation research and practically began to speak in tongues, an event that preceded her attempt to choke a student from another department and vandalize her advisor's office. Nor did she come from a department where it is acceptable not only to ask your laboratory technicians to clean the cage of your very large birds, but also to charge their birdseed to the department. Nope, this button never heard a particularly prominent and senile member of National Academy of Sciences let an incredibly loud fart rip without causing a break in stride, let alone an utterance of "excuse me".
I looked at this girl, and I smiled. You know the kind of smile to which I am referring. It's a smile born of wisdom, and sadly, a loss of innocence. It's toothless and almost smug. I believe it is also typically accompanied by a head tilt and an exaggerated blink. Inside you are thinking to yourself, "Oh, bless your heart". It's that smile. And I gave it to her. For a moment I was horrified because this gesture confirms what I had long ago begun to suspect-I am getting old (although in all honesty I came to that realization a while ago when I began to get a thrill from seeing my grocery bill deflate in front of my eyes after handing my rewards card to the cashier). But then I regained my footing and explained that I was not actually witnessing anything out of the ordinary.
It seems as though a large proportion of people in the life sciences are a bit...well, crazy. I hate to use that word because I am a proponent of reducing the stigma attached to psychiatric illness, in which case crazy is certainly a pejorative, but this particular population is just wackadoo. I'm just saying. I can't tell you how many times I have had conversations with my friends (and fellow scientists) in which we pronounced someone in our research lives absolutely, positively, and unabashedly crazy. Too many to count. And then it hits me. What if I am the one who is crazy?
This line of thought usually takes me down the same road time and time again. It starts with questioning whether or not I'm the one who needs help, and then it morphs into this existential discussion. Do crazy people know they're crazy? The natural progression from this question is, Do ugly people know they're ugly? Inevitably it ends with a very frightening prospect. Do mothers know when their babies are ugly? At this point in time I find these questions to be mind boggling and unanswerable. Frankly, I'm not sure I want to know definitively. I prefer ignorance in this situation. It is the same ignorance I wish for this girl who is only at the beginning of the arduous journey known as grad school, and who has yet to observe the real personification of crazy. Bless her heart.
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Nah, I don't think you're crazy, or even jaded before your time--I think that smile at the fresh-faced youngster of a student had its roots in your war wounds from surviving the toxic hellhole. I know every institution and department has its issues, but our little corner of academia seemed to be its own special brand of Crazy.
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