The Study and The Studio: April 2015

"There is something which all the greatest artists and writers, naturalists and scientists, voyages and explorers, poets and pioneers, share. It is an interest in the external world and the ability to contribute something creative to human life in this world by means of taking parts of the world to pieces and putting them all together again. The ability to observe, and the ability to see the little things that seem trivial at first, may become amazingly important and meaningful. Out of little observations huge ideas may grow; and if a mind, made receptive by training in the use of the sense, can store away a mass of observations, the time will come when the whole collection can be unrolled, connected together as a great novel is planed, in a compelling pattern that tells us something new."

- Harold Gatty

The themes of exploration and adventure are constant companions as we travel from place to place on this grand medical school journey. There have been places where curiosity comes easily and places where those themes seem to lose their hold. The trick is to keep them alive regardless of the ease or difficulty.

We went from a developing country with Rastafarian farmers roaming among 9 volcanoes in tropical heat to an off season deserted and frozen beach town with flat farm land leading to endless ocean. Then we went from swaths of highways coating alligator filled swamps with faceless houses gated in on either side to hillside homes serving as an escape from NYC with classic bridge and skyline views.

The places in between those temporary base camps were just as diverse.

Each place requires a new curiosity and provides a fresh perspective. Much like people. In all of our moving I am working to cultivate the ability to see the little things amongst the larger happenings. Because, as Gatty says in the quotation above, "the ability to see the little things that seem trivial at first, may become amazingly important and meaningful. Out of little observations huge ideas may grow."