This past December my mom asked me, after I finished gushing about a snake documentary I got for Christmas, "Why don't you go into something with critters? Zoology, or something?"
"I don't think scientists actually get to do much field work," I replied, "and I don't think I'd like lab work. And I don't think they get paid much. And even if it was cool, I think they have to leave their families for months at a time to do fieldwork, and I don't want to do that."
"Well, okay..."
I began giving the same speech to my boss the other day (it was not the first time we'd had the discussion) and she cut me off, saying, "you have an excuse for everything." I replied, "no, not for being a doctor. Becoming a doctor makes sense." And becoming a doctor does make sense for me. As a doctor I would do something concrete, I would be fulfilling a fundamental need. I would be serving people directly, and I could see the results of my work. I would make a lot of money. I would feel prestigious, like I had accomplished something with my career. If the economy tanked, I would be safe because people always need doctors. And if the nation collapsed into anarchy, I would have a usable skill (I don't know what HR guys or English professors will do if the nation collapses into anarchy).
But it doesn't light me up. I do not have a native interest in the intricacies of the body. Take my skeleton, for example; these are the things I know about my skeleton: I have a cranium and a spine. There's a femur in my leg (the long bone on top?). I contain a metatarsal; however, I don't know where it is or what it looks like. I am not itching to know. I've never picked up an anatomy book because I just really wanted to learn more.
Zoology doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I mean, I don't really care much for cell-structures and ATP and genetics. I'm a people person, and I think zoologists, by definition spend little time with humans. I can't really think of anything useful that zoology does. (Ornithologists are considering splitting a single species of sparrow into three really similar but different species of sparrow. That is semantic, esoteric, and I can't see how it will improve anybody's life, not even the sparrows.) Along that line, I think I veer away from science because it can study the body of life while ignoring the spirit (the humanities can do the opposite). Zoology jobs aren't in high demand right now, and zoology professors certainly aren't at the top of the university payroll. And I don't think they're as immune to anarchic upheaval as doctors are.
But animals sure do light me up. I love watching nature documentaries; David Attenborough is my Michael Jordan. Learning about nature pleases me. Without looking anything up I can tell you that a certain species of snake has a down-pointing spur near the front of its spine specially suited to cracking eggs, that a velvet ant is really the wingless female of a certain species of wasp, that vinegaroons receive their name from the acrid odor they emit when threatened, that scarlet macaws hail exclusively from Puerto Rico, that buckbrush can be identified by the pungent smell released when crushed in your hand, that the best way to carry a snapping turtle is not (regardless of what the field guide says) by its tail, that lack of teeth does not a painless bite make, that tiny whip-scorpions live beneath the flaky bark of the sycamores near my home, that "edible" plants don't necessarily taste good, that even when you have a good grip on them, some snakes can dislocate their jaw and sink at least one fang into your hand.
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