Courtesy of GreenNeticen

What does it mean to live a good life? Philosophers have written about this questions for thousands of years, and very often we find surprisingly up-to-date answers and suggestions in texts as old as 2000 years. Sadly, most of the people in our hectic western societies (and the more and more hectic eastern societies and ….) feel that their life is getting out of hand and they grave for answers but ironically feel that they have no time to retreat and read those timeless pieces of advice. On the other hand, there is a rich corpus of new literature and online media dealing with these questions.

I have spent countless hours in the past 15 years thinking and reading and acting about this problem of what it means to live a good life. I’m certainly influenced by humanist ideas and some eastern philosophical streams. I feel that “Mens sana in corpora sana” is a good starting point for thinking about good life. Then, everybody has to define for him or herself, what that exactly translates into.
In this and a couple of following blog items I will try to report on my portfolio of thoughts, sources and solutions

As scientist, we can’t help but being a scientist 24/7. Simply by definition. We are driven by curiosity and encapsulated in an incredibly dynamically moving field. The scientific endeavour doesn’t start at 9 am and ends at 5pm. No way we could stop thinking and working after and before the end or start of a regular work day.  That makes is even more important to create islands of leisure and to indulge in good reading, arts, music, physical practice, being with loved ones and friends.
And the good news is: All of this will make us better at our core profession. We all know that many of our best ideas come at unexpected times and at unexpected places. My wife, a psychiatrist, likes to say: “Don’t disturb your brain while it is doing its job”.

In the September 1st issue of NATURE, you can find two articles that very nicely layout the problem: On page 20, Heidi Ledford  writes about “The 24/7 Lab”, subtitle “Working weekends, leaving at midnight, Friday evening meetings, does science come out the winner?”. She describes one of those restless 24/7 labs led by a scientist who demands late night hours and working over christmas from his staff and who sometimes regrets a bit that he sees his children so rarely. But he drives them to swimming lessons (while he does that, he is efficient by having phone calls with lab members). I have met a number of colleagues over the years who work like this and who were quite intolerant against other scientific lifestyles. An obvious thing to observe is that at least in earlier days, these people lived those demanding lifes on the back of others, such as their partners who stay at home, look after the children and do the household.  Now, don’t get me wrong: I firmly believe that everybody should live the life of their choice, as long as it is concious and doesn’t hurt anyone.

Then again, on page 27, Julie Overbaugh, a team leader in the Division of Human Biology, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, thinks that ’24/7 isn’t the only way: A healthy work–life balance can enhance research’, and I couldn’t agree more. She delivers an extremely well-balanced opinion, including a paragraph where she says: “To be a successful scientist there are times when it is important to pull out all the stops — when a big grant deadline is looming or a high-impact paper is wrapping up. Sometimes, when we are competing with other labs on an exciting story, I briefly imagine locking everyone in the lab to try to push for results more quickly.” And this is actually very fulfilling, if you know that times of retreat and re-energizing will follow. The most enlightening exercise here is indeed to look back at the life of many successful scientists in the past (just think ‘pre-internet times’), who where not constantly connected, burdened by administration, applying for research money and frantically jetting around the world. There it turns out that more time to think, less communication and long stretches of isolation are very beneficial for fostering intellectual achievements. As a starting point you might watch David Levy’s talk entitled ‘No time to think’ at Google. It is worth-it just for Meng’s introduction

I’m going to stop here. This post was mainly to alert you of these two articles. I had it sitting on my hard disks and now my phd student John May put the article on the table again.

But let me say one last thing: Do not let others dictate how you live your life. Very often they are completely disqualified to do that. An old bon mot says that, on their death bed, very few people regret that they didn’t spend enough time in the office.

Image courtesy of Readerwalker

As the eruption under the Eyjaflalla glacier in Iceland kept me on the ground yesterday, together with half a million other people in Europe, and I found myself confronted with the question of what to do with another evening in Cambridge. So I decided to give the Oak Bistro a try which is just a two-minutes walk from where I live but which so far had slipped my attention. The Bistro is located in a historic coaching inn at the corner of Regent Street and Lensfield Road. People sitting at one of the few tables in the front room can observe the busy life at the crossing. As an elderly lady with a hearing problem kept shouting at her company, I decided to take a table in the back of the bistro. The Oak features an eclectic menu with hints to a number of international cuisines. I started with some Shetland scallops which still had their coral attached, placed on a bed of a very nice, light, citric green salsa, accompanied by a Viognier Altas Cumbres Lujan de Cuyo from Argentina from 2008, a relatively light and crispy white wine. For main course, I choose to go for the wild mushroom risotto, which was good. The chef ignored my resentment against truffle oil but luckily used it very sparingly.With it, I had a Broken Rock Chenin Blanc from Coastal South Africa, again  2008. It held what the wine list promised.

I finished with a selection of cheeses, which was a mistake (three relatively large pieces of relatively boring cheeses), only to have reason to drink one of their desert whines, followed by a glass of Armagnac and Espresso.  Overall, it was a very delightful evening with good food and the Oak’s friendly and attentive staff.

Did I make my way home? Yes, I was able to get one of the few remaining Eurostar Tickets for the next day and took the train from London St. Pancras home to the Black Forest. Breakfast in London, lunch in Paris, dinner with your loved ones at home in south-west Germany. Life could be worse.

As a start, it was recommended to put on the dive suits in the center, before going on the jeep, driving 20 min to a different spot on the beach, getting on a very small rubber dinghy with a total of about 10 people and driving another half an hour to the first dive spot. I found this inconvenient. Everything was very crammed and it was certainly the least comfortable dive trip that we had since doing our Open Water certificate in Thailand. The first dive spot at the white island in the center of the caldera of Santorini was quite nice and relaxed. It was a wall dive of about 18 m depth and 45 min length. Visibility was very good.

The second one, however, wasn’t. Without proper briefing, the guide led the group into two caves, which is clearly a violation of good practice. People without training for dives without direct possiblity for ascend should not be led into such situations. Since I felt I had to follow my buddy, who had already entered the first cave, herself following the dive guide, I went into the first but refused to enter the second. The lunch break was too short and unpleasant due to the small, crammed boat.In this particular case, I have to say that I could have asked for these things beforehand and would probably still have gone on this tour if I had known before. It was our first dives since 2003 on Bali and since there are only two dive bases on Santorini (one was already closed), there was not much of a choice.
The dive trip was 60 Euro per person.
If I compare this with almost all other dive trips we had, food, space and guidance was not sufficient. The situation in the cave was nothing but dangerous and I therefore cannot recommend this center.

But let’s start with the good things. As probably all of the places in Oia looking towards the Caldera, the crater resulting from the disastrous outbreak of the Santorini volcano 1600 BC , the view is stunning. The suites are moderately spacy and the staff is friendly and tries to fulfil the wishes of the guest, as long as they are standard. And here is where the problems start. The communal areas of the hotel are all located around a small pool where also breakfast, lunch and dinner are served in small caves. If you don’t insist, the music is turned up to an unbearable level. If you ask for it to be turned down, your request is fulfilled and minutes later the level comes up again. You can do this three times and then the discussion starts. “It’s the policy of the hotel”, is the first answer to your “Why”. Further dispute ends with the typical “I only work here” and “Talk to the manger”.

So, you go back to your room – but only to find it as a victim of a chemical assault A so-called “air freshener” has been used by the room maid in such an amount that breathing get hard and asthmatic attacks follow. I thought this might have been an insect repellent used only on the first day but it wasn’t. After the room being “made up” in this way, it was not usable for more than three hours. Since the rooms are carved into the crater walls, air exchange through the small window in front is slow. We asked the room service to stop these assaults for the rest of our time being here, which worked.

Directly next to the potentially most private senior and superior suites in the hotel, there is the laundry and assembly point of the personnel, always accommodating a large enough number of people to create a constant stream of loud chatter in Greek and Russian, starting at 8 am in the morning. The place could be wonderfully quiet. Maybe this is again the policy of the hotel, so the guest do not feel too lonely here.

For a location where one is just supposed to relax in various places, this hotel is a total disaster. The only potential place to hide in silence and shadow is your room, which, again, is in the chatter range of the laundry personnel (not only our room, but a least a hand full). I can only recommend to avoid this hotel if possible.