This month’s blogs have focused on renewal – but too often we only think of renewal in the physical sense. Today our guest blogger, Dr. David J. Waters, shares his thoughts on intellectual renewal and how that spurs creativity. Dave is the executive director of the Gerald P. Murphy Cancer Foundation and is a global scientific thought leader and researcher on cancer and longevity in both pets and people. He has challenged himself to become a poet-scientist and over the past 5 years has continually challenged me intellectually and creatively. As a result, every meeting reenergizes me and opens me to multiple new possibilities. I encourage you to download his white paper, On the Self-Renewal of Teachers, no matter what field or occupation you find yourself in.
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I came close to throwing a fit the other day. I’m a scientist and the scientific manuscript I submitted for publication got rejected – again. Our data helps to explain why a 175 million dollar prostate cancer prevention trial in men went bust. But the experts don’t want to hear our story. I guess it just doesn’t fit – fit closely enough with the prevailing wisdom. I tell my students that the best new ideas don’t come at you like a pair of tight-fitting briefs, but rather like a loose-fitting robe. There’s room in that robe for different kinds of growth – not just the vertical piling on of more facts, but growth of the rhizomatic kind … the growth that connects. We all strive to become experts in our field because we believe that expertise will enable us to spot key connections, perform at the highest level. But as experts it’s easy to slip into ruts that undermine our openmindedness to new ideas, turning us away from loose robes. The renewal of experts, therefore, hinges on a return to naivete – seeing things anew, looking freshly at how things fit. For sure, renewal is idiosyncratic – you’ll have to find the process that fits you best, one that will build a higher comfort level with paradox, ambiguity, and uncertainty. Because you might never be quite certain when you get there, but you’ll certainly feel it when you’re close.
~ David J. Waters
