We all had a lot of hubris at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (I did, anyway). When the lockdowns started in February of 2020, many of us optimistically planned to be out of the office for two weeks; some of us declared that everything would be back to normal by Easter. Here we are, two and a half years later. While events are back on and masking is optional in many places, variants continue to crop up and in the last month in the United States an average of more than 400 people a day have died of the disease. One of the many, many sad parts of the last two years is that this number now feels low to me. In early 2021, at the peak of the pandemic, more than 3,000 people a day were dying of it in the U.S. How is a person supposed to go on studying a small slice of planetary science, making plots and revising drafts, when death and disease are spreading through the population like wildfire? Facing mortality has a way of helping put things into a new context. My life now, my family and friends, feeling peace and comfort – these have more weight than they did pre-pandemic. This shift is not unique to me and it is not particular to scientists - hustle culture has taken a hit in the last two years. What future are we all rushing to when so many things around us seem to be falling apart? In what is by no means an original take, rise and grind culture is rooted in a kind of extractive capitalism. One that expects unlimited growth; something that is completely unsustainable. Workers are complicit in taking on the costs of success, doing damage to themselves to get ahead. My pre-pandemic mindset had me pretty sure at the beginning of the lockdown that I was going to be more productive than ever while also churning out new paintings and taking up new hobbies. I absolutely failed to image the impact it would have on my productivity to exist in a world where I was monitoring local transmission rates, considering whether or not I should disinfect my groceries and listening to stories of people losing their battles with a strange disease in isolated, painful, and scary ways. With a dearth of outlet for communal mourning and in a situation where many of us were tucked away in qualified safety, my grief flickered on sporadically and mostly I felt a version of fine that was underlain by successively dingier basements of sadness and frustration that I tried not to think about. While this allowed me to forge ahead, it was not ideal soil for producing results. It was hubris to think I would use all the time I would save commuting and seeing friends and turn that into more productive hours. And yet, hubris is needed in our field. It’s audacious to look out into the sky and think that we can explain the inner workings of things we cannot touch or reach or see. Five foot hairless primates with jello-soft brains resolving to do things like see what’s under the surface of Mars, characterize waves of solar plasma, and calculate the occurrence rates of Earth-like planets in the galaxy. These kinds of results require high quality resources, including the work of individuals - their effort, diligence and perseverance.
How do we reconcile the need for scientist to put in such efforts and to take care of themselves and their families in these stubbornly unprecedented times? This question has me thinking of one unprecedented yet uncharacteristically positive event in the last year: the launch of the Just Wonderful Space Telescope in December of 2021. Designed to look further back in time than any telescope before it, JWST is an engineering marvel. Its 6.5-meter primary mirror is larger than any of its predecessors. So large, in fact, that it had to be designed in segments that could be transformed to fit in the nose cone of a rocket. Same goes for the first-of-its-kind 21 x 14 meter sunshield, which necessitated a unique folding pattern such that the holes for the non-explosive actuator pins would be offset so as to not let sunlight streaming through all five layers. As impressive as JWST is, it has been equally contentious. By the time of launch, this space observatory was 14 years late and cost about ten times what it was initially budgeted for. This behemoth program ate into NASA funds that could have otherwise gone to other projects. I had the privilege of working on JWST in 2014 on a project related to the launch timeline. As an intern, I remember trying to gauge whether or not we would make the slated launch date (hint: LOLOL). A lot of the project leaders seem to feel that we would make our target barring any unforeseen circumstances and if we all worked diligently. Some of the engineers I spoke with expressed less confidence.
An aside about lateness:
There was a really good episode of Freakonomics that talked about why projects are often late and what we can do about it. It’s worth a listen, but the crux of the issue is that people tend to be overly optimistic that the future will be basically free of problems, despite the fact that they have happened to all of us in the past. The podcast recommends that you observe the difference between how long you think something will take and how long it actually takes over time and to build that in to future plans. This is something NASA contractors absolutely did, but in this case not quite enough.
Despite the issues, JWST did finally launch - and it launched perfectly! It made it to space with such extreme precision, that it was able to save enough fuel to extend its maneuvering capabilities down the road. Now that the spacecraft has fully deployed and completed its commissioning phase, it has begun observing and this summer we have been treated to one amazing image after another. The feat is truly incredible. And it’s a gift to human kind that can inform how we feel about the universe and our place in it. The capacity to see what is out there has the ability to impact those quiet moments where we are just existing, just experiencing being alive on this planet. I can think of no other endeavor more personally meaningful to me than learning about our cosmos and sharing the unraveling mysteries with my fellow humans. It is worthy of devotion and committed action. At the same time, I’m unwilling to squeeze the life out of my short and precious existence in service of my career. So, where do I ultimately stand on hustle and hubris? In another completely novel take, I am in favor of moderation; it’s something I’m calling “work-life balance.” I think it has the potential to catch on.
Wow. Very poetic. You have a wonderful way with words and a keen sense of observation.