Just out of curiosity

I get it when fiction-writer Dean Wesley Smith says that we have a 'creative voice' and a 'critical voice'. Smith always writes with his creative voice, never with the critical one, not even when rewriting the text, simply because he never rewrites. He says the best work is done with the creative voice (and actually, it is the way to enjoy the process the most). It is easy to distinguish between the two voices: the critical voice is always finding problems, and difficulties, it is negative, complaining, judging; the creative voice says 'let's play!' . I think this is the best description I have ever encountered about creative voice: 'let's play!'. No judgment, no evaluation, no worries about reaching the objective. That is why the creative voice is so important: because it does not create barriers, it allows anything to happen ; it does not stop action by analysing it, evaluating it, judging its value, measuring its importance.  The creative voic...

It was just two Sundays ago that I wrote a blog  entry about me working on a Sunday because I had a lot to do. And yes, I like my work, so I am happy working beyond normal hours. However, I always try to keep the weekends work-free because I need to recharge my batteries. It is important for everything to function properly. Guess what? Today, Sunday, I worked a full day again.  I know many researchers that work basically all the time. Others do not do it. But I always tell people that being a researcher is like running your own company (at times): if you want things to roll, you cannot just say I will work 8 to 5, Monday to Friday. There are times when one needs to walk that extra mile.  I know, it is not very family-friendly. But let's be honest, society is not very family-friendly right now. It is hard for women to keep up with their careers in general. Women going to work has created a vacuum in childcare that kindergarten and schools do not fill. In my case, it also ...

This friend of mine told me something interesting today. He had heard a podcast where  a military leader states that a leader should bring emotional balance to their group. T his also happens when leading a group of researchers.  In leading research groups, there is an important part of the role that is not based on knowledge transfer or experience, but on being an emotional counterbalance: they are too excited, you have to calm them down to avoid over-motivation; they are too nervous, you have to downplay  and relativize; they are anxious, you have to stay calm; they are under-motivated, you have to show excitement and positivity; they think "they are shit", you have to show extra appreciation,... If emotions are too high, you have to bring them down; if they are down, you have to bring them up. The toughest part, though, is to not get infected by their emotional state. For example, it was hard for me to be with a student that showed high signs of anxiety. In the beginni...

I had this question in my mind (a math question), it popped yesterday in my head and I had to wait patiently until this morning to be able to examine it. I dug into it immediately after breakfast. Since I had a list of tasks planned for this morning, I decided that I would dedicate just one hour to explore the problem. But that's the issue with curiosity: one hour does not suffice. Lunchtime came, "Already? I guess I have to stop". And I had to stop, there were other things happening after lunch: meetings and admin and stuff. The morning was over. Three hours and a half had passed flying by while thinking and jotting down some computations on a page. What a nice feeling. The initial pile of work had not been reduced. I did not stick to my original schedule. But, do not blame me, from time to time, a researcher cannot help doing research.

Going from a post-doc position to a group leader position is a big jump. For me, the biggest difference is to have people under my care. And I use the expression "under my care" on purpose: I feel responsible for them - at least to an extent. This puts pressure. However, what puts more pressure on me is the mentality of "now I am a group leader", i.e., I have a new identity and I have to live up to its expectations. And what happens when group leaders feel that are not meeting their own standards? Group leaders may feel like hiding their own lack of knowledge and weaknesses. This is human, but also devastating. When leaders try to hide their vulnerabilities, they avoid situations of growth: asking questions, meeting people, starting discussions. Not only that, every situation is about " what does this say about me?" rather than being about the project, the people, the lesson. In the end, every situation becomes a potential threat - a threat to their ident...

When a PhD student produces a new piece of maths, checking its correctness can be very daunting. Typically, there is a high communication barrier: it is simply not easy to communicate maths. In this case, I think that  going line by line through their document - having the PhD student next to you - may be the best strategy; even though it is very time-consuming.  Going line by line with them can be good because they can see at which points their explanation is not clear; at which points notation is not consistent or definitions are ambiguous; where more details are needed. In this sense, it also saves time and energy: trying to understand the text while having its writer at hand to ask questions can make the process less tedious and faster. Of course, I am talking about documents where the student wants to check out the math, not just editing a text to make it understandable.  If it is just editing, I am hoping that the text will be clear enough so that I would not need t...

There was a time when I doubted that meeting PhD students every week and getting involved in their projects was a good way of supervising and doing research. When I started supervising I met my PhD students once a week, but I was trying not to get too involved in their projects. Already by meeting them so often, I was  feeling a bit guilty and unsure: "Is this the right thing to do? Will this affect their independence and their development as a researcher?" A common type of supervisor that one finds in pure maths is the "hands-off" supervisor , they will typically say: "This is your project, not mine, do not come to me until you get results or get stuck; then, we discuss - and Latex everything before coming". Typically, students are a bit left on their own to struggle and try to find their way by themselves. Many times advisors give students projects and they do not work on them. T he project of the student is only theirs: it is not the project of the supe...

There is a delicate balance between what I want to do and what I must do to "survive".  Now that I am tenured - I have a permanent job, - I have more freedom to decide what to do (how to direct my research, how to run my group, how to teach). There is a lot of freedom in the 'what to do' but also in the 'how', and both are important.  Freedom comes with a price: one must constantly apply it in a conscious way. It is too easy to get swept by inertia; by what is trendy; by what we think others expect from us. Psychologically, it is safer to follow the trend rather than to be authentic.  After all, if we fail, at least we fail "doing what was expected from us". U nder these circumstances,  failure seems more acceptable. On the other hand, succeeding in this manner may be a failure in disguise: a success by consensus may not be a real success.  I do believe that everyone is unique in terms of motivations, skills, beliefs, experiences,..., and what makes ...

Following the previous post , there are even more analogies between writers and researchers in mathematics. Typically writers are categorized into two types: the discoverers (they write without a plot in mind) or the plotters (the ones that organize all the scenes, the points of view, and the structure). Discoverers do not know what is going to happen next, plotters know everything. Typically writers are in between these two extremes. I think researchers are more the 'discovery' type. We have some kind of end goal that can be more or less vague, and some initial path to get there, but that is where our understanding of the plot ends. When walking the initial path new things are learned, new questions are asked, new curiosity is spiked and new motivation is born. So we keep changing paths, goals, and the story. As a consequence, we create a lot of work that will go to the bin: piles of written papers that will not appear in the end product, but that was necessary to reach the de...

Tomorrow, back to work. It has been the first long holiday (2 weeks) in a long time. Among other things, I read the book "Someday is today" by the novelist and storyteller Matthew Dicks. I found it great. It is especially useful for creative people that do not manage to find the time (and strategy) to get things going. Dicks is a brave and generous guy: he goes out there and exposes his journey and vulnerabilities. I found him a true source of inspiration. Reading "Someday is today" and "Storyworthy" (another book of his) , I found quite a few analogies between being a researcher (in mathematics) and being an artist: Despair (of not knowing if you will make it or if you will be good enough): Apparently, both Matthew Dicks and Stephen King (and others) had a moment of despair where they thought that they would never become novelists; nobody was going to buy their books. The same tends to happen in maths: PhD students (and post-docs) tend to go through a ...