I find beauty in telling stories about giants

My Ph.D. advisor often likens the pursuit of knowledge to “standing on the shoulders of giants” — the giants being years, decades and centuries’ worth of scientists and their findings that came before us.

When I started my Ph.D. program, I wanted to be a giant. Rather, I believed that I should want to be a giant. Over the years, I tried to dream up the kind of fantasy land that I — as a future giant — would roam around.

Andrea Lius

Andrea Lius enjoys afternoon tea in British Columbia in 2024.

“Just pick a kinase,” I thought. “Or, fine, a protein family.”

“Or maybe, a signaling pathway.”

But I tried and failed to convince myself to settle on just one thing. Every time I thought that I might’ve found a research area to which I thought I could commit for the rest of my career, I stumbled on a study on a completely unrelated subject that piqued my interest.

The more I thought about finding a specialty and striking out on my own, the less I wanted to leave the cozy cave that is my Ph.D. lab. But I knew that I must move on eventually. So, I tried to figure out how to satisfy my curiosity and break out of this self- (or system-) imposed bubble of highly niched science.

After several forks on my road, I found my way to writing. In the beginning, I wrote simply to improve my mental health — to organize, store and explore both my happy and sad thoughts. Around this time, I submitted my first personal essay to ASBMB Today, under a pseudonym.

Since then, I’ve written a variety of articles for the magazine. For some pieces, I spoke with scientists from different backgrounds about their work, and sometimes, about their personal identities. As an introvert and nonnative English speaker, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed these interviews. In hindsight, I don’t know where I found the courage or confidence. Yet, I kept conducting interviews and writing stories.

I remember thinking, “It’d be so cool if I could do this full time.”

So, I followed my curiosity — venturing out of my cave more frequently to speak with giants in different lands. At the start, I harbored an inkling of hope that I would eventually feel at home in one land and choose to stay. However, as I saw more places and traded more stories with the giants of each land, I realized that it was the wandering that truly captivates me.

Having spoken to many giants, I learned that despite their differences, they all share one thing: a love for their land and lives as giants. This helped me realize that it was never the outside of my cave or the journey itself that I feared, but the looming possibility that I may never feel satisfied and would have to spend the rest of my life pretending to fit in.

But, in my journey, I’ve also met and traded stories with other wanderers, who, like the giants, despite their differences, share a love for their way of life. I realized then that I could fit in somewhere after all, even if that somewhere is not a land, but rather the road that connects them.

When I first considered a career in science writing, I struggled with assuming a new identity:  science journalist. I grappled with the idea that becoming a writer meant I was, as many told me, “leaving science.” Throughout my life, many of my mentors told me I’d be wasting my talents if I didn’t pursue an academic career. These comments disheartened me and made me feel like I was disappointing the people who spent valuable time mentoring me, those who believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.

But, even as I chose the life of a wanderer, I knew that the time I spent learning the ways of the giants was not wasted. So far, writing about science hasn’t felt like a waste of my talents, and I definitely haven’t tossed my identity as a scientist out the window.

Quite the opposite happened: My years of training made me a better communicator. As I spoke with different scientists about their work, I found that my background was indispensable in building rapport. I rekindled my love for science, which was once dulled by the winding path of Ph.D. work, by reading papers outside of my area of expertise, talking to other scientists and sharing science stories with a broad audience.

With time, experience and a lot of introspection, I realized that I’m happiest when I set my curiosities free and untether myself from specific protein families, signaling pathways or methods. I’d need multiple lifetimes to become an expert in everything I wish to learn. And to be completely honest, even if I was offered multiple lifetimes, I’d likely still say no. By becoming a science journalist, I even get to mold my identity as a scientist into a shape that feels much truer to myself.

Some people dream of standing on the shoulders of giants. Others prefer to tell stories about said giants and those who stand on their shoulders. And I believe that there’s beauty in both.