Four, Twenty-five

At some point, I realized that the world wasn't going to let me be a kid my whole life. Yes, everyone will constantly tell me how much like a child I can be and I can enjoy events from a child's perspective, but demands will be made of me more and more. When I turned twenty-five, I had lived for a quarter of my life and accomplished a lot of things of which I was proud. And really nothing that I could shout out to the world and to get its approval. And somewhere at that point, when medical school finally accepted me, I knew that who I was mattered not to random people compared to who I appeared to be.

Could make a cynic of anyone, right? Instead, I went off and enjoyed the next month of flying kites and eating good food. Truth is, until telepathy is invented (or rediscovered), John Doe won't know a thing about Mary BoBoberts. So that's why I hope that in the field of Neuroscience, some genius will come up with a telepathy-enhancing thing so we really can share who we are with whomever we wish or that they find a section of our vast set of neurons that could grow during childhood to send and receive wireless signals from other humans.

In an odd aside, Blogger's dictionary apparently doesn't recognize "Neuroscience" as a word. Instead, as a correction, it offers up Pseudoscience as the number once choice. Silly Blogger, Trix are for Hindus!

Back to the point. I don't know if I will ever be the person who makes a difference that the world notes. I don't care that whatever achievements I am recognized for also include the name of my medical school. But I do know that I will matter in hundreds of thousands of lives and that their feelings towards me will be more treasured than the feelings of administrators for getting more research funds or schoolchildren 100 years into the future who have to recite my name because it's in some history book for some award.