Mention controversial interest in essay - or sanitize it?

DadTwoGirls
Thu, 24 Jul 2025 20:36:23 +0000

gsssg:

I am frustrated by the stigma attached to these drugs

A professor who I know once told me that he thinks that all of the academically strongest and smartest students he had dealt with have at some point suffered from some sort of depression or something related to this. “All” is probably an exaggeration. However, this is far more common that a lot of us want to recognize. This also can be common among the most accomplished and famous people. There are at least two things that come to my mind: The most accomplished and famous people are not always “average”, and may have grown up being the odd kid (until they started getting known for whatever eventually made them famous). Also, it is not easy being famous. For example the expectations are high and don’t go away. This last point might be less bad for scientists and engineers, and worse for people who are in entertainment who can’t just walk down the street without being recognized.

There is still some stigma, but I think that it might be a bit less than it used to be.

By the way, there is similarly a stigma about cancer. However, some famous people have recently been willing to talk about it publicly and I think that this helps. I posted something related to this in the “bragging” thread a few weeks ago. As more of us live longer either with cancer or after beating cancer the stigma may go away a bit, or at least be less intense.

gsssg:

Never mind the false hope it offers to patients.

There are however a lot of people who are being helped in a very significant way. The hope is not always false.

gsssg:

the real scientists are held back from legitimate research that could be life-altering or even life-saving for desperate patients.

Some of those “real scientists” are themselves being helped in this area (see first point above), and are living good lives and having good relationships at the same time.

Of course pharmacology can be useful in ways outside of neuroscience. For example, someone I know was at some point working on trying to improve treatments for a gene-based illness. She was working with biochemists who were trying to find drugs that would bind with a particular hormone to turn it off (there are some cases where turning off a hormone can be medically useful). This had nothing to do with the brain, other than helping to make people healthier.

gsssg:

I have always done the deep, deep dive in my areas of interest over the years.

To me it seems that people who are very successful often have a tendency to go a bit overboard, whether in their work or their personal life. They are interested in completely understanding an issue, and sometimes in seeing how far they can take something. Two people I know who were very successful in high tech have decided to see how far they can go in music (one to the point of going back to school to get a four year bachelor’s degree in music from a well known music school). I might have personally gone a bit overboard in terms of growing blueberries – this has nothing to do with my career, it is just the way that some of us operate. One high tech person I know also races sailing catamarans. This might come from a desire to understand how things work, and perhaps from the ability to do well enough to compete semi-successfully in a range of fields.

I hope that all of this is helpful to you as you think about what to write.