taking sides

I parted ways with majority of my schoolmates after my 12th standard when i decided to go for B.Sc. Physics instead of engineering. To be honest, i don't think i had put a lot of thought into it at that time (all i had decided was that i won't go for medicine). Apart from that, i remember aspiring to become a teacher of organic chemistry, influenced by some teacher at the coaching classes, but my poor score at 12th in Chemistry left me wanting no more of that subject. After B.Sc. i cracked the entrance exam to get into IIT Madras for my M.Sc.
Towards the end of my first year at IITM, i had made up my mind to do Ph.D. I again managed to clear the necessary exams and interviews (4 out of 5) to be faced with the big question: Which institute should i choose? Having come to PRL (that's Physical Research Laboratory), the first six months saw me doing the mandatory courses, and then there was the second big question to be answered within a span of one year: Whom should i choose (approach for) to be my guide?
Now let me steer to the main topic. The questions mentioned above are the ones that i had to answer. I would have been stuck if i were not able to decide if i were to go for B.Sc. or engineering, and later if i should choose PRL any other institute, and so on. Let's say at such junctures, i had to physically take some action, like filling up a form for either Ruia or VJTI, and booking a ticket to either Ahmedabad or Bangalore. This might seem childish, but may prove really important.
But what if such a decision proves to be a terrible one? If you ask me, i would never feel sorry for that decision. You can call it sheer endurance or a refusal to admit an error in making the decision itself (NOTE). Things could have been equally bad or worse at any other place, but this is no consolation i offer myself anytime. It's just that, as a matter of policy, i don't feel there's any room for repentance anywhere under such a situation, all you can do is bear the storm as it comes.
Having said all this, i put forward another question. I am doing my Ph.D. right now i.e. i am doing some science. There are people who get all excited while talking about science, they get a smile on their face while discussing some interesting stuff, and most of the times they think about science and nothing else. These people are not nerds or scientists that are portrayed in a contorted way in cartoons and comic books, they are normal human beings who have devoted themselves truly and completely to science. On the other hand, i can say that science like other occupations has evolved, and that it should be treated just as any other profession. That would mean i can watch movies, attend parties, go for picnics, and work for science on the weekdays. The flip side to that is, i feel, it allows room for mediocrity, just like in other professions. (Even then i feel you won't find that in science, because here everyone works for themselves -- right from a student to a director -- and nobody else.) So which path do i choose? It's not that i would get stuck in a place if i don't answer the above question. In fact when i wrote NOTE in parentheses above, i was hinting towards making a similar choice.
Another such question would be: Was WMD the only reason why George Bush bombed Iraq, or did he have any hidden, selfish motive? There have been n number of articles saying that the US has been eyeing oil supplies in the middle-east for a long time, whereas one also has to note that it's not just the US, but countries like Russia and India too, that are hunting for oil in Iraq. So unless one takes pains himself to find out the answer, one's opinions would be based on reports from journalists with a probably questionable unbiasedness, or on purely gut feelings, in the extreme.
It seems that the answers to such questions don't matter. Here i may be totally wrong, but i will review it i feel so. Irrespective of the choice i make i will be leading my life in the same way i did before i was posed the question. So whether i decide to be a 'hard core' scientist or a 'professional' scientist will probably make no difference to how i actually do things when i am working. I can't resist at this point the temptation of relating the question to the dog in the idiom 'let sleeping dogs lie'.
In the end however, i can surprise you by giving a possible answer which equates the two sides. It's when Richard P. Feynman walks all the way around the entire hall to his chair, and not directly towards it, he says that 'I could do that, but i won't' is just another way of saying that you can't, in the book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!