The story is as old as Walcott’s beloved Cambrian
mountains. You begin with a promise: I
won’t have time research but I will be more efficient. Others have fallen by
the wayside, but I will be different; I will never abandon my research; I’ll
keep working and publishing at close to full volume. Slowly, the perverseness of creeping
inevitability takes over. Research
fades. You never abandon the ideal, or the original love. You will get back to
it, after his term as director, after retirement, after….
Sometimes, you really do enjoy an old age of renewed
scholarship; more often, as in Wilcox case, death intervenes. –Stephen J. Gould
Live life while you are alive. Soon it will be over. Follow your heart.
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