How do you keep motivated?

[Dakota Hamill]

No science here, but nonetheless important.

It's been interesting reading the posts on this group over the years and even meeting some people in person.  The group is an eclectic bunch that spans the gamut from academic professionals to people who've never picked up a pipette in their life, and all are part of the family!  It's great when that many people come together because they want to learn something.  Curiosity is no doubt an important human trait, as is the desire to teach others.

I know many people each have their own little projects they are working on, with some people intent on changing the world and others just happy to see that a transformation worked.  Nevertheless I'd venture to say that many of us all share something in common, and that's that we all are a little "different" from the normal crowd.  

I never liked jumping through hoops and life has an odd way of punishing you for that.  Many of us are or were students, undergraduate or graduate, and I feel like academia can sometimes be the worst perpetrator of elitism.  

I'll be completely honest here and say part of me really desires to be part of "the club" of elite institutions because it is a form of validation, of saying, you made it, you're good enough.  And then the other half of me, which brings me to this place filled with all you fine people, says #$%& the club.  It says to me, you don't need external validation to be great.  You create greatness through your actions, you inspire greatness with your ideas, and you nurture greatness by helping others.

Maybe I'm going through a quarter life crisis because I fear committing to graduate school prior to taking a chance in life, but it seems like you're up against the world when you're outside the bubble of rich schools and rich companies.  I guess that never stopped many great people in the past though, so why should it stop any of us?

I suppose part of it is feeling guilty for asking for help without a perfect product, or a flawless plan of execution, or an already finished proof of concept.  But...often times you need help in order to make a better product, or to build a better plan of execution, or to achieve a proof of concept.  

Before I write a book that no one wants to read I think I'll stop there and just ask, what inspires you?  What motivates you?  What are your successes and failures? Do you fear living your entire life without being validated for something you've worked very hard for?  How do you overcome caring about what other people think to just get shit done?

-Dakota

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

Hm, short answer, Curiosity is the cure boredom. There is no cure for curiosity.

 

For me it's the possibility to create something that can help a lot of people. Make their lifes better. Make them ibnterested in "science" *

 

*science in the sense of curiosity

[Josiah Zayner]

Awesome post Dakota and good questions.
This post is probably going to be kind of negative and alot of people won't like it but maybe it will help inspire changes to some things in DIY Science.

There has always been alot of debate on this list over it's history about whether people should goto school or not and I have usually always been pro-school because I went to school.
I think there is alot of what I like to call "Good Will Hunting Syndrome" in DIY Bio. People think that they can pick up a pipette or even a book and next week or next month be a prolific Scientist and do great experiments. But the truth is that you can't.
Science is one of those tough disciplines in which alot of knowledge is needed to even begin on a basic level and until one is at a high level one does not actually know the knowledge that they don't know so they imagine that they are brilliant and have and can solve all the world's problems. I was actually like this alot!

One can teach themselves things but what and how? i.e. do you even know what you don't know? Most professionals do a Science based undergrad, maybe a Master's or technician position and then a Ph.D. for a total of about 12 years in Science training from teachers who know what they are doing. Even then alot of these people are considered poor Scientists. So how to make a good DIY Scientist? I think it takes years and years. Which is why so little "innovation" is currently coming out of DIY Science. It can be done for sure. I believe in it. That is why I am part of it. I know it can happen because I was part of the computer hackers movement in the 90s and taught myself to code and wrote some pretty nice software. So I know it is possible at least in some disciplines. Even then though that took being stuck in front of a computer for 8 hours a day for years.

I think the main issue is how to be stuck in a lab and Science environment for 10 hours a day for years. I bet I would have a hard time finding a untrained DIY Scientist that had lab skills that could compare to someone who did their Ph.D. at a top 40 uni. because they just can't replicate the hours that are spent in the lab and the hours in class and the hours being mentored. I think one way to change this is to make Science supplies and equipment available for cheap which I am trying to do at The ODIN(http://www.the-odin.com) so people can do everything they need in their homes. But I think there also needs to be an infrastructure in DIY Science with mentorship and such, which there currently is not.

If you really love Science I would say goto graduate school. That is if you can goto a top 40 or 50 Uni. because the training in the other ones might help you find a meager job but in my experience with others in Science it is probably not worth it(might offend alot of people saying this but it is true. Mediocre Scientists at mediocre universities breed mediocre Scientists). This is not the case all the time and used to be different 20 or 30 years ago when funded wasn't concentrated in the top 20-40. Graduate school is hard and a waste of time for most people and many Ph.D.s I know end up working in an area that doesn't require their 6-7 years of depressing training. It really is tough. But I wouldn't change it. I would do it again. I didn't even know what I didn't know and I learned more than I could have imagined when I went in.

An anecdote:
I did my MS at virtually unknown university, Appalachian State. I remember going to a Gordon Conference, which is kind of a prestigious conference in Science, and people really wouldn't give me the time of day. I remember going to another Gordon Conference while finishing my Ph.D. at UChicago and people wanted to interact with me without knowing much about me. I am sure some of it also had to do with my perception of myself but that is honestly the way the world works. You goto a top 10 or top 20 uni and everyone thinks you're hot shit or a piece of shit depending on who you ask.

Money, prestige and notoriety open up doors that are so much more difficult to open otherwise. It is sad but true. If you don't have any of these it can be really difficult to accomplish things.

Beauty inspires me. When myself or someone else builds something or hacks something or does an experiment that is really clever that makes me impressed by the skill and creativity. That inspires me. Also, Iron Man 3.

I have run two kickstarter campaigns and both failed. Worked on one failed business. Invented The Chromochord(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromochord) and no one cared about it for years after my first demo. Was tore apart on this list for posting the $2 gel electrophoresis power supply(remember that?). Was considered bottom of my class when I entered graduate school. Had papers rejected many many times. Every non-academic grant I have written for any of my projects has been rejected(maybe 10 now in the past year).

It sucks not to be validated. It is one of the saddest parts of life. However, don't think graduate school will bring you much validation from more than a handful. Especially when all your peers are also Ph.D.s

I think in the end you need to find a reason for doing something that is almost beyond others. Just to see something cool and beautiful. Maybe have one other person experience that beauty.

If you ever want mentorship or advice feel free to contact me or even just to show something interesting or cool. josiah...@gmail.com

[Cathal Garvey]

There are many tiers and types of "motivation", so it'd be hard for me
to give one answer. So, I won't.

On the one hand, I'm motivated by a love of making/hacking/doing, and a
love of teaching and enabling. And, that's not likely to change. That
motivates me to do "stuff" daily, whether it's writing, coding, or (when
I was able) biohacking.

The other side is motivation to actually stick to a particular mission
or task, to see something through to conclusion. Over time, with my bad
luck in the lab and events like IndieBB, I found myself enjoying more
and more the other end of my hobbies; software and writing. Motivation
to actually do things in the lab is hard to maintain without successes
or support, unless you have something else to go on. For most people,
that's company and camaraderie, but I lacked that in Cork for a long time.

Another thing that was keeping me going was a mission to develop "open
biotech", but I learned that, as an end in itself, it's sadly not very
rewarding. I still develop open, but I realised that few people besides
myself care that much: http://www.indiebiotech.com/?p=245

Of late, my motivation problem has been turning around. We've received
verbal agreement from the Cork City Council that we can use a lovely
city centre building for a minimal fee per month, to establish a
biomakerspace, and I have found a nice nucleus of DIYbio founders to
back it up. We have Synbio Axlr8r in Cork for at least another month,
and some teams may choose to remain for a while or indefinitely.

So, my mission right now is to somehow raise enough money in the next
month to actually fund a biohackerspace, and my own survival, in order
to give it all a good shot. Probably corporate sponsorship, if we can
find a local company with enough vision. I feel like if I can get the
doors open, and invite people into a communal DIYbio lab in my own city,
that I'll never want for motivation again. Time will tell!

--
T: @onetruecathal, @IndieBBDNA
P: +353876363185
W: http://indiebiotech.com

[Cathal Garvey]

Allow me to add, by the way, that in my ruminations on the absence of
interest in Free/Libre I by no means disparage those who awesomely
supported IndieBB. There are people who share my love of Free/Libre
biotech, and many of them reside me. That we are too few in number to
support an industry on that basis alone is sad, but at least we are here!

[Simon Quellen Field]

How to keep Dakota motivated?

Or what keeps me motivated?

I think the former question is the more useful one to answer. :-)

1. You will meet more smart, helpful, and interesting people at school than you will at home.

2. Schools have already paid for the lab equipment.

3. In business, the Masters may be the income-maximizing degree, but in academia it is the PhD.

4. At a good university, you will meet people who will be a valuable part of your network later in life. They will help you get jobs, get funding, get you introduced to people you need to know.

5. It is easier to get the education and credentials now than it will be later. Life intervenes.

6. You can have a lot of fun at a university even while working your butt off.

7. Life is easier for us elites. :-)

-----

Get a free science project every week! "http://scitoys.com/newsletter.html"

[John Griessen]

On 06/06/2014 11:25 AM, Dakota Hamill wrote:
> I'm going through a quarter life crisis because I fear committing to graduate school prior to taking a chance in life, but it
> seems like you're up against the world when you're outside the bubble of rich schools and rich companies. I guess that never
> stopped many great people in the past though, so why should it stop any of us?

It can be so many little details, running a small business. That does stop almost all people
from doing their own business. If you do not mind picking up lots of skills, business maybe a fit,
but if doing bookkeeping seems excruciating, maybe not. The elite schools will guide you
to settings and friends that all say, "Business is for the morons". You might find that path
stops as much as it starts as far as innovation. Academics focus on PhD requirements to
increase the "body of knowledge" to such a degree that they cannot spend time on mere innovation.
Priceless time has to be saved and spent only on discovery and exploration of the unknown.
Being motivated to do that is very different from anything in business, and pretty
much requires you to fit into corporate structure or academic structure. There's no other known
way to support such "discovery only" ways of spending time. The rest of us have to do some innovating
as well, just to stay solvent.

In 2002 I was doing a business attempt and
found that the EPA was against it and Texas agents of EPA compliance were sniffing around because
of my business classification on my sale tax license and because I had foolishly volunteered to be part
of a "recycle Texas" network. I ended shutting that idea down as impractical and doing a bankruptcy also.
So, it's not all a walk in the park...business...

What inspires me is that there is FOSS for business and for engineering tools and hooking it all together as
web apps is getting easier and more normal, so it can be hired as well as doing it yourself. Plus,
I've always been able to see machine designs with no drawings, no nothing, just the thing there,
and with a few covers off, the intent of its designer is obvious for many mechanical things.
So then I studied electronics, got jobs with big companies, found out they tend to not help you
construct a work history you like, but one that makes goals of the company happen, then they lay you off.

So now -- no life crisis, just still have that urge from when I was six to make things.
I've been busy with an income generator along with my wife that is soo old school, just rental
real estate -- an apartment, and so during that project I needed *some* outlet for engineering creativity.
I asked on an email list if folks wanted a tool for doing debug and repair like was getting hard to find
as an old used ebay item and who would sign up to pre-buy some, and who would commit to buy when ready
and 60 folks signed up, so I learned to order stuff from Taiwan and assemble a kit product. That
worked. It paid its way. To me, it's fun and inspiring to order industrial lots of parts and sell them at
a good rate. So I'm going to be making some lab hardware kit products on the way to making/selling
fully assembled products. Things like incubators, culturing setups, PCR, liquid handlers. Lab
gear connected via powered ethernet, USB, plastic optical fiber, and even radio when the noise
conditions in a lab allow it. Plastic molding will be key to this line of work. There are hurdles
to people copying physical things like molded plastic -- the tooling is money spent. So,
much of that kind of thing can be open documented and free licensed as much as anything can
and not risk losing business much if it is a niche market. I am going to make most of my gear
open licensed so I can maybe attract others to help develop and promote them. So far, I've found almost
no collaborators, so that may not happen and I don't count on it. Mostly my inspiration comes from
making income from my own developments with not much more than raw materials or commodity
subassemblies to build on -- I get a charge out of that. I love to solve problems that have a broad scope,
such as how to make something environmentally friendly, useful, long lasting, inexpensive.

The assembled products will take a while and need
UL/ETL safety testing and product liability insurance paid up. Another area I like to explore
is robots for practical manufacturing, so these little businesses, even though mild and low risk,
set the stage for being able to design my own machines for production purposes. That all inspires me.
The production equipment feeds back into lab automation equipment... That makes me smile.

Finding a group of customers to sell something to inspires me, especially if it seems development work
is called for. You don't want to develop too far ahead of what's available now though, or you could run out
of money and fail.

Keeping motivated? Hmmm.... besides innate ways of being motivated, you must mean "How do you keep away
the distractions?" One thing is realize how the Monopoly board game can be a crude life model, and
admit that "I am weird", and so, get your own piece(s) of dirt to control and be weird in
and get income from parts of that are rented. In other words definitely set things up so
you do not "need" a job. Jobs stifle all of this.

[Dakota Hamill]

haha all the responses are great!  Josiah I like the Good Will Hunting analogy, and you answered some questions I had about school, thanks.  Cathal, I understand where you are coming from with IndieBB and the lab-side failures, glad you are finding some joy in writing and teaching.  I can relate to feeling beaten down a bit, or at least, coming to terms with the fact that not everyone might be able to relate to (or care) about what you are trying to accomplish.

Simon you are the wise wizard that saw right through me haha, but truly I was not trying to plead for attention, just merely wanted to get some input from others on here who might have shared in the same ponderings of...why am I doing this? does anyone care?

And john I think you spoke the most to some of the things business related I am concerned about with right now, so thanks. 

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[PeterMartin]

This is a good question, because not only for those who love the life sciences; but for all humans.

Many people have wonderful advice for managing and organizing and otherwise making things just less hard. Motivation; it seems to be a thing we need to find from both within, and from outside ourselves. 

I have a short answer to your question, and I do not mean it in a sad or bad way. But it is what motivates me. I am in this for the life extension; human regeneration. I'm not quite there yet. Everytime i start to get discouraged, an image flies into my mind, and it reminds me what problems really matter, what ones are really insignificant and temporary. I am immediately motivated to keep moving forward again. 

I came across this simple message on one of those e-card memes that go by on our social medias. It has a small child sitting at a writing desk, and it says

"When work feels overwhelming; remember that you're going to die."

and thats that. I'm not immortal yet; so what am i wasting my time for? I can have all the time in the world if I work through every hardship now.

this kinda motivation isn't for everyone; but sharing is caring, and I sure love that pic, so I would have appreciated someone sharing the same message with me. 

PS:
I'm glad that you asked. I know at least a dozen people who won't muster the courage to ask for help. Science is fun though, so remember that! Relax! go spin some poi for 15 minuets. a spin break is the best kind of break. 

[Will Sutton]

I think diybio is really exciting right now because the lack of success.

Back in the late 70's when people were first starting diy-videogames, there wasn't any startup millionaires, people were just trying out crazy ideas. Now it seems like most videogames are just different riffs on the same formula. Most software startups are riffs on the same model.

But what's the model for diybio? I don't think we know. We have a good sense for sequencing/synthesizing cost curves are going in twenty years which will be opening up huge possibilities. Before then, it's up to a few who are willing to work under severe constraints to find that model nobody sees yet. This book's a big motivator for me: What the Dormouse Said. To quote the most interesting man in the world "Stay thirsty, my friend"

On Friday, June 6, 2014 12:25:26 PM UTC-4, Dakota wrote:

[Dakota Hamill]

Very well said Will

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[Katherine Gordon]

This is to Peter Martin,

Amen to your quest Mr. Martin. We could all use a 10 fold life extention just to learn to be decent to each other not to mention have time to assimilate the nature of evolution.

I would like very much to work with you in some way shape or form

Kthrn...@gmail.com

I lost my child 17 years ago, she was 17. I know that you did not mention emergency medicine in your blog, but I also realize that if we could extend life we would have time to aquire more of every kind of knowlege. Death can wait.

Sincerely,

Kate

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[Yuriy Fazylov]

Cathal Garvey since finding out that openbiotech.com is your website (am I right to make that assumption?), I wanted to know -some human cell lines are Biosafety level 2 whereas others don't have a classification. Does that mean they can be worked on under BSL 1 conditions?

[Nathan McCorkle]

openbiotech.com is John Schloendorn's operation.

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[Cathal Garvey]

Not mine, sorry.

However, I would caution anyone against working with human tissues in a
DIYbio setting; there's a real possibility you can actually propagate or
contract viruses from your tissue samples. Researchers working with
human or monkey cell lines often get vaccinated against Hepatitis B on
this basis.

Also, if something is BSL2 or above, then you cannot work with it in
most places without some kind of licensing or permit arrangement. In
other words, also not really suitable for DIYbio.

[Yuriy Fazylov]

Thanks Nathan & Cathal.