Why I Love Research (Atomic Essay Day 12)
I wasn’t much of a talker back in school - I was a very shy kid. So image my surprise (& everyone who knew me) when I became a researcher - where talking is literally most of what I needed to do.
A good researcher needs to be comfortable talking to people, they need to be okay with awkward silences and awkward conversations. A good researcher also need to become best friends with people they have just met and are probably radically different than them.
Despite doing 200+ interviews since 2012, I’m still amused by the fact that no matter where you’re from - you can always find a way to connect with a person.
I was doing an interview today with someone in the US. He was wearing a cap that said ‘Lake Tahoe’ - a place I’d visited as a kid almost 20 years back. For the rest of the conversation, it didn’t seem like we had just met for the first time.
These conversations induce a range of emotions - contemplative, angry, sad, happy, excited, inspired. They make me recognise my privilege and make my problems feel small. They help me understand myself better in a way.
So in short, my favourite part of Research? Discovering different parts of myself.