and I have no compass and I have no map

Stephen Colbert and Stone Philips in a gravitas-off = enough reason to stay up late on a Monday night. Even if I am paying for it dearly today.

Occasionally, my professors make statements that seem ridiculously obvious, and yet, somehow, manage to throw me into a pondering tailspin. Yesterday's gem was: "You have to know what you're looking for in order to look for it." See. I know. DUH, right?

But it's a fundamental challenge in an early stage of basic research. In the beginning, you are just looking around, without a clue what it is you're really looking for. Think of the Human Genome project- scientists wanted the map of the human genome, and initially argued it would unlock the answers to everything that ails us. I know I'm exaggerating here, but so did they, so let's call it even, shall we? Ultimately, the project did yield a map, which resulted in more questions. But they were better, more informed questions. Slowly, we're figuring out what it is we're looking for. That improves the chances of finding it considerably.

You can develop a test to confirm whether or not someone has a virus, but first you have to know quite a lot about that virus. Only by studying the virus at the molecular level in detail can someone design a test to specifically identify that virus' presence in a person. The same is true with a multitude of other diseases.

It seems so simple, to remember to know what you're looking for before you look for it. But I can't think of too many times in life that I have actually followed such a credo. I am more likely to get in my car and drive until something catches my fancy than I am to map out a route to a destination. Some of this ties into what the ultimate goal may be. If it's the searching that is the goal, the place where you stop may be irrelevant. If it's the destination that matters, though, you better know where you wanted to end up.

Of course, I don't know, not exactly. But this time, I have an idea of what the destination looks like. It's blurred around the edges, it hides behind a veil of fog, but I can make out the shape of it. I know when I'm heading away from it and when I'm heading towards it. And that's just about the level of certainty I need at the moment.