I sometimes wish I could have omniscient awareness of the genomic data that I work with -- down to the value of each individual data point. I obsess a lot over what my data are doing and how my analyses are transforming and summarizing them. Really, it is quite impossible, of course, for me to have an awareness of each individual data point. The data must be folded up and distilled in order to reveal the broader patterns that make sense to my human brain. But, still I wish I could follow individual data points as they dance through my analytical pipelines. I wish I could watch them being created and transformed from one state of being to the next, sliding to the left and then pirouetting to the right, joining others that are like them until they all arrive in the same place: a file, a figure, a finished manuscript. Many data points disappear along this journey because they are biased or faulty in some way. If I could follow each one, I would know with unequivocal certainty that the unbiased points made it to the finish line, and the faulty ones were all filtered out.
The details can become overwhelming, though. I can get consumed by the intricacies of the bioinformatic pipelines, the choreographed dance that I'm attempting to direct. My internal dialogue is often drawn along the lines of obsession: What if something is wrong that I'm not seeing? Am I sure this is right? I need to compare this to that, just in case. What am I missing now? I should check this again, just to make sure. What does this mean? I'd better make a note of that. I get drawn into the devilish details, sucked headlong into the numbers and nucleotides on my computer screen, until I am just one of millions of data points across the genome I'm analyzing, lost there--alone--despite the sheer magnitude of the data swirling around me. It goes on like this until I can no longer see the forest for the trees...or is it the trees for the forest? I can't remember--that particular detail is eluding me.
It is all too much. Ultimately, after implementing thoughtful checks and balances, I must trust and have faith that each individual data point is dancing to the same choreographed routine--that each is behaving properly, and that the regimented routine that I give my data is, indeed, valid. I am no mastermind or omniscient overlord. My mind is quite ill equipped to compute data of this magnitude. I can connect dots, one-by-one, but I cannot connect millions of dots all at the same time in the way that machines do. Where do I fit in, then? I wonder this often and conclude--hopefully without too much hubris--that my strength, or at least my role, must come from connecting the final dots that matter the most in my work, and in my life. Especially connecting the strands of history, faith, and perseverance that bind us human beings together in the endeavor of living, hopefully with as much kindness as we can.
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