BLOG 14 -- MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION

I rarely make New Year’s resolutions. I prefer a different way for self-improvement. My resolution on January 1 was to write another book starting on January 1. This I have started. My working title is MY HEROES: FIFTEEN PEOPLE WHO COMPOSED MY LIFE. I wrote the introduction, the table of contents, and a chapter on “Hermann Muller taught me how to be a scientist.” I started with what I know best and those five years (1953-1958) are wired into my memory. This is not a psychoanalytic analysis nor is it a meditative way to know myself. I believe we are a composite of influences from people and events and I chose fifteen people who are plastered, with my gratitude, into my psyche. You’ll learn more about them as I churn out chapters. For the Muller chapter (provisionally Chapter 9) I discuss the PhD experience and what the mentoring relation is like for a budding scientist.