Intersecting science and literature

I reread When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi yesterday, and I was shocked to find that he majored in English and Human Biology, co-termed in English, and considering getting a PhD in English. This surprised me for obvious reasons:

1. I'm doing English and HumBio at Stanford, and his choices to co-term in English and consideration to do a PhD in English are...familiar to me, to say the least. He said, "If you asked me at 17 what I wanted to be, I would've said an English professor." That's...me right now. (And yet, he became a neurosurgeon!)

2. I was reminded of how much my career and interests might still change, and how much I might change as a person. In college, I'm constantly reminded of transition and transformation, and I was startled to remember it again.

3. It's okay not to know what to do after getting a bachelor's degree. I've been pressuring myself to figure everything out within the next three years, but maybe developing and discovering new interests is a lifelong thing.

Rereading this book sparked my own interest in the intersection between science and literature. Perhaps literature isn't the right word, I'm not sure what is. I want to know more about how the scientific worldview makes sense of metaphorical and philosophical representations — the heart, for example, I see and experience as a force within the body that holds deep emotions. It can break over and over, yearn and feel bittersweet, and heals at a snail's pace.

At the same time, I know the heart pumps blood to keep us alive. Heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular diseases obviously pose a real danger; then, where is the heart from literature located? How do we make sense of these two seemingly disparate ways of viewing ourselves and the world? There must be a way, otherwise all scientists and doctors would be cold-hearted and emotionless.

This might not make much sense (the coherency currently is...abysmal). Right now, I have so many questions: What about death? Religion? The ideas of love, eternity and past lives? How can such small things like neurons and synapses produce brilliant works of art and literature? How does mental illness work? I don't understand how depression can just be a malfunction of the brain, when it has such a devastating impact on everything else in our lives too.

Oh jeez, these questions all sound like neuroscience questions now. That's terrifying. I took PSYCH 1 to try and make sense of these issues, but I've only ever felt fully understood and heard by descriptions from literature and poetry.

Look at these, for example:

"Almost every woman I have ever met has a secret belief that she is just on the edge of madness, that there is some deep, crazy part within her, that she must be on guard constantly against 'losing control' — of her temper, of her appetite, of her sexuality, of her feelings, of her ambition, of her secret fantasies, of her mind." (Elana Dykewomon, "Notes for a Magazine")

"maybe i walked out of the womb with it

is it possible to be born

with such a melancholy spirit" (rupi kaur, excerpt from where the depression came from)

These quotes encapsulate feelings I've had more truly than any scientific paper or textbook I've read. I've learned about depression, the symptoms and possible causes, but nowhere did I see anything about the frustration that comes with it, trying to figure out how being in a loving family without any extreme hardships can still produce a girl who can't explain why she has bouts of feeling terrible, unloved and unworthy. (I just switched into third-person narration? Trippy, but I'll go with it.)

Instead, I feel seen and known in Instagram text posts and poets. How does a scientist make sense of romanticism and the human desire to love and be loved? Why I adore sunsets and tea and blankets? Maybe I don't want science to be able to answer these questions. I want to believe there's something inherently magical and inexplicable in living...but I can't. I already know too much of science to brush it away completely, but I don't want every detail stripped down to fact and explanation. This is frustrating indeed. :(