The rest of my work, besides sketching and keeping a diary, which was the most troublesome of all, consisted in making geological and zoological collections.
So I ask that these papers be taken for what they merely are: exercises, trials, tryouts, a means of displaying possibilities, not establishing fact.
I don't see writing as a communication of something already discovered, as "truths" already known. Rather, I see writing as a job of experiment. It's like any discovery job; you don't know what's going to happen until you try it.
I didn't realize that, in doing a documentary, there is this process of discovery. It's not like a film or a play with a set script. It sort of reveals itself.
Most of the time I've worked in labs if I didn't encounter something in a week entirely unexpected and surprising I'd consider it a lost week. Lots of that is due to mistakes and stupidity, but it could open a new line of inquiry. Something really good turns up once in a hundred times, but it makes the whole day worthwhile.
There is an idea of, you know, informing people about some emerging things. And part of that is just a reflection of my own interest, following different areas and saying, you know, look what they're doing now.
I think what's so interesting for me is the different roles that I play. I love doing the research, and I love - I feel fortunate in the sense that I get to explore many different worlds, of things that I may not really get to learn a lot about.
I've always worked a bit like a cook in a big restaurant, where you've got lots and lots of things laid out and you go and look into one cauldron and you look into the other and you see what's coming to the boil.
I've been to all seven continents on assignment for 'SI.'
