A weekly walk in science

Sometime this year, I was in a beach in Palawan. I was still waiting for my meal to be cooked so I left my table and walked to the beach, which was just a few meters away. Then I decided to draw a big DNA with a stick on the sand, stretching for about 25 meters. I wrote all the base permutations that came to my head as long as I followed the basic rule that A is always paired with T and C always with G. It turned out that all that time, there were three beer-drinking fellows watching me draw. They looked like they were locals so they had more allowance for crazy tourists. They never approached me while I drew my sand DNA but when I went back to my table to eat, one of them, after some prodding by his other two friends, walked to the sand drawing and stared at it, obviously perplexed. His friends called out loudly to him, "Ano nakasulat diyan sa buhangin? (What is written there in the sand?)" He replied, mumbling, scratching his head, "Letters eh pero paulit-ulit (just letters...but same letters repeating)." Sensing that their friend could be of no further help, they just asked him to come back to their beer. Then, they all looked at me furtively, as if saying that I may have had a bottle too many.

My year-ender column is the only column where I share the kind of feedback I get from readers. The story above typifies one reaction I get to the columns: they do not know what to make of it. One drug company executive even said that he tries to put it aside for a while like some kind of fruit that would be more palatable when it ripens in time. He goes back to it after a few hours and he said he still does not understand it. Another said she keeps the page where the column appears, in her bathroom and does not get rid of it until she understands it. She says the columns have since piled up in her basket for toilet reads. I do like hearing reactions like these. They remind me that I will always be failing, in some (or more) in my efforts to be understood. And that is reason enough to keep trying harder.

A couple of readers bearing some very self-indulgent Y chromosomes seemed to have been drowning in their own hormones when they read the columns and missed the entire point of columns that I wrote on sexuality. They surmised, in their own self-sufficient way, that I must be wide open for their very pedestrian suggestions on what their mighty Ys can do to my personal double Xs. Reflecting on the remarkable shallowness of men like these, I remembered reading somewhere "women who want to be like men lack ambition." I want to send these Ys as case studies to support that statement, all in the interest of science, of course.

One reader even insinuated that I might not be writing my own columns which makes me think that if some readers who try enough do not even understand my columns, then it is probably time to fire my supposed ghostwriter. I answered that reader back, saying "I do not understand why you would even imply that I do not write my own articles. Edison (yes the ‘bulb’ fellow) thought that a woman was not capable of direct thought. He also thought electrocuting women would be the solution. He was really doing fine with gadgets like the light bulb until he dabbled in biology and theorized on the nature of woman. Now, the light that accompanies the memory of Edison is dimmed by that idiotic remark. Like Edison, you should have stopped after your second or third line. Lights off, sir."

I also have received much fewer "aren’t you worried about where you will spend eternity?" e-mails, compared to previous years. I guess they all figured I am such a waste of time since I simply and constantly reply that I have enough tasks with this one life to worry about the logistics of the kind of eternity they have in mind. But that does not keep me from wasting my own energy anytime through this column, when anyone publicly advocates a cause-and-effect relationship between religious, moral choices/emotional states and natural events such as tsunamis, earthquakes and typhoons, genetics, etc. I will, with all my might, challenge the validity of such claims and add that to our running list of national idiocies.

Compared to previous years, I have personally met more readers this year. To those readers, please know that my experiencing your good minds in writing has become even more indelible in my memory when I shook your hands. These readers took time out to ask very good questions, which made me think deeper and harder – breaking my mind open more widely to possibilities. Thank you readers. It is pure pleasure to meet you at this Thursday’s space.

This is a science column. It appears in a newspaper, which renders it so friendly to shove to the trash can, as a fly swatter, as a butt cushion, as dried fish wrap, as confetti, as a protective mat between your clothing, your skin or your pet’s and surfaces like grass or cement. But being so, it also has a more sustained chance to have you reading what it has to say, which at times, may be worth your while. This column is only one of those many columns that try to make sense of what is out there. De Rerum Natura does it with science as its primary lens. It is for the public, some of whom may be interested to know what this great human endeavor in science has been up to, in revealing to us what makes us human, that could perhaps help us become better humans.

Like those three beer-drinking fellows in Palawan, I, too, find some of the things I come across, perplexing and puzzling. Like them, I, too, am always moved to walk up to those curiosities and mysteries with the march of my own thoughts and examine them in closer detail. Sometimes, I see a bit more light than I did when I first approached it; but often, the tunnel of questioning proves to be longer than I thought. I think my readers know this about the columns. But either way, I arrive closer to my own self, which is really at the heart of questioning. We know ourselves better when we pursue our curiosity of things outside the more obvious concerns of this "self." There is a Buddhist saying that goes "every walk is a walk toward oneself." May this weekly walk of ours in science make us better friends with our nature as human beings.

A mindful walk through the new year to all of you.

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