The Hike Doesn’t End At The Overlook

Random thoughts about academia, purpose, and finding my way down

I am at Penn State for a short visiting research project. At the same time, I am trying to write my second paper.

After submitting my first paper, working through the corrections and getting it published, I had started spending more time thinking about work than doing it, while jumping between small tasks, updating my CV and website, and looking at other people’s updates on LinkedIn.

I had moved from trying to do everything at once to focusing on one project at a time. Maybe this has now turned into an excuse not to touch the others, while making little progress on the task at hand. Either way, I was spending the weekend aimlessly in my room.

So I decided to go on a long hike.

Since I am in the US, where public transport is almost nonexistent, I got an Uber to the Mount Nittany trailhead. The driver arrived in about a minute. I was still at my laptop and did not even have my shoes on. I threw them on, ran to the pickup point, and left without snacks or water. By the time I reached the trail, I was already thirsty.

Near the trailhead, I met a man who called himself the Wizard of the Woods and had a staff. He said others called him Dan. He was painting a bench someone had left there, with a chessboard nearby. When I asked about a water fountain, he said there was none. Then he looked at me and asked, “Are you thirsty?”

He reached into his cooler and gave me a bottle of water. The ice in the cooler had melted. I was not sure whether I could trust someone who looked as though he lived in the woods. But that bottle got me through the hike.

After a quick chat, Dan offered to play chess. I declined because I am terrible at chess and have not played properly in a long time. I told him I would play with him another day, then started up the trail with a stranger’s water in my hand. I wanted to reach an overlook for sunset and finish the loop before it got too dark.

Climbing Up

The first part of the trail rose so steeply that I could barely talk without panting. Apparently there could be a black bear or a rattlesnake in the hill. I only thought to look this up 20 mins in, so I took off my earphones and started paying attention. Later, when the ground became easier, I started voice recording my thoughts on my phone.

When I began my PhD, I felt as if I had all the time in the world. I was learning new measurement techniques, exploring new materials, and finding ways to understand new physics. Lately, I have felt less like that person and more like someone whose job is to produce the next paper.

As I begin thinking about what comes after the PhD, the questions have changed. How many papers do I have? Is my CV competitive? When should I apply for postdocs? At a conference in Germany, I introduced myself to prominent researchers in the field and told them I will be looking for a postdoc next year, although I am not yet sure when I will graduate.

Publishing is part of science, and making connections is useful. But when every activity becomes evidence for a future application, it is easy to forget why I wanted to do science in the first place. I joined my bachelors degree wanting to discover new things and contribute to the collective scientific knowledge.

Now I sometimes worry that I am making only incremental contributions to a very narrow subject. The research is so specialized that only a handful of people around the world may fully understand the particular work. When something genuinely interesting appears, it can take a year to turn it into a paper and several months for the review process to finish, long after the excitement I get looking at the first raw data.

My mind returned to the thoughts living rent-free in my head: no matter how much I accomplish, there is always somebody who has accomplished more. My CV is taking shape, and several good things are happening this year, but that has not stopped me from wanting another paper and another sign that I am doing well enough.

Saying these things out loud on the trail helped a little.

At one point, while recording myself talking about not knowing where my life was going, I realized I had followed the white trail instead of the blue one. I turned around and found my way back.

A Moving Waypoint

The stony path and tall trees reminded me of a video I once recorded on the lush Indian Institute of Science campus during my undergrad. I also had the slightly disappointing thought that many trails look much the same while you are inside them. The real difference often arrives at the overlook. I had wanted to take a hike like this, yet I was not as excited as I thought I should be. I do that often. I switch between interests and hobbies, even spend money on them, and then lose my excitement after a while.

Still, the forest was peaceful. Smoke from Canadian wildfires had reduced visibility during the previous week, but that evening the air had cleared. Sunlight came through the tall trees in narrow patches. The trail became quiet enough that, later, my own footsteps scared me.

I thought about the choices ahead of me. Academia, industry, and science communication; all look good from where I am standing. I am sure each has its own problems. At some point, I may simply have to decide which set of problems I hate the least.

I also have more freedom than I once did. I can take a trip alone simply because I feel like it. I have people to spend time with in Iowa City, and I have also become much better at being by myself. Freedom brings responsibility, uncertainty, and too many possible directions.

For a moment, I tried to turn that into an uncertainty-principle metaphor: if my velocity through life was high, perhaps the position where I would settle had to remain uncertain. Halfway through saying it, I realized it did not work.

Not every thought on a trail deserves to become a quote.

The hike also reminded me of a small hill near my hometown, where a group of school friends had a picnic during COVID. It may have been one of our last big meetups before everyone went in different directions. People I grew up with now seem to be settling in with marriage, children, high paying jobs, savings, and so on, while I am still deciding what I want in life.

I know many people feel this way. That does not make the uncertainty disappear, but it makes it feel less like my own failure.

The Difficult Way Down

Near the end of the hike, the trail descended sharply over loose stones. Going down demanded as much attention as climbing up.

It made me think that coming down and being humble can be as difficult as going up and becoming accomplished. I had spent much of the hike thinking about advancement: papers, positions, and recognition. But progress also requires noticing when ambition has become self-importance.

Comparison can make me feel inferior, but it can also tempt me to place myself above other people. Both impulses turn life into a ranking. If I cannot come back down, I have not completed the trail. Similarly, if I cannot return to who I am, professional progress means very little.

As I continued down, I began to hear vehicles. The noise broke the quiet and reminded me that I was returning to the daily routine.

I thought about two films I had recently watched for inspiration, Hidden Figures and Infinity. The scientists they portrayed had done important work, but at the end of the day, they were still people with regular life problems. That is easy to forget when academia asks us to present ourselves as lists of papers, awards, and positions.

A few days earlier, a man who identified himself as a Christian approached me during lunch for a spiritual survey and asked what I thought the purpose of life was. I said I did not know. Then he asked what I considered the biggest problem in the world.

I could not answer that either. There are too many problems, and I do not feel a clear connection to one that stands above the rest. The questions made me wonder if I was lying to myself when I wrote I wanted to improve humanity in my PhD applications.

The hike did not completely settle the thoughts that kept appearing. The papers were still waiting to be written. I will probably start feeling impostor syndrome again in a few days. But speaking the thoughts aloud took some of them out of my head, even if it may last only a short while.

I had spent the climb thinking about moving up. On the descent, I remembered that the trail does not end at the overlook. It was getting dark, and I still had a fourth of the loop to cover. I stopped philosophizing and tried to speed-run the rest.

At the end of the trail, I ran into Dan again. He started asking about my research and I was surprised. I explained that I worked in nanophotonics and studied light–matter interactions. He suggested that I look into fractals because, as he put it, everything in the universe is made of them.

I had gone to the mountain hoping to clear my head and return with more focus. The Wizard of the Woods sent me home with one more thing to think about.

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This post was drafted by recording my thoughts on the trail, transcribing them offline with Codex, and putting the text together with its assistance.