Truth and Fantasy

Written by Joram Piatigorsky

Narrated by Joram Piatigorsky

The 67 essays in Truth and Fantasy explore diverse themes from different perspectives based on the author's and narrator's experiences. The essays are neither comprehensive nor meant to argue forcefully for any single viewpoint. Rather, they are meant to stimulate and inspire additional thoughts and ideas. Beginning essays include musings on random thoughts on the power of silence and neutral and indifference. Subsequent essays emerge from a lifelong career in biology research and touch on whether the ability to evolve is an evolutionary trait. Other essays argue that the nature of intelligence and aesthetics can be traced throughout the animal kingdom, including even so-called "mindless" invertebrates. Challenging subjects are covered in essays about the foundations and meaning of creativity, considering even the role of boredom and imperfections as sources of creativity. Other essays deal with ambition and the relative significance of the buried streams of time between the specific, visible, highlighted episodes in life. The essays include reflections relating competitive tennis to general issues of life, express gratitude for 50 years of marriage, the miracle of having children and grandchildren, the positive nature of kindness, the despondence of losing a treasured wedding ring, and relief when it's found; art: how it's valued, the significance of authenticity, the importance of ambiguity, and the experiences of amassing a world-class collection of Inuit sculptures. Essays describe uplifting experiences and broadening horizons by traveling to exotic places – Israel, Iceland, Greenland, Portugal, and West Africa – and the nostalgia of returning after 40 years to the science laboratories in Puget Sound as a writer instead of a science student. Finally, essays maintain that aging need not dampen ambition and creative efforts but do not ignore the inevitability of death and its value in defining the marvel and privilege of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lantern Audio
• Release date: Jan 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9781959162001

Joram Piatigorsky

Scientists develop hypotheses – stories – to bridge gaps in the narrative between the known and the unknown. We look at the specimens and data we collect and try to tease out meaning, examining what we have, questioning what we might be missing, and trying to reconcile the two. We do this in hopes that others will come behind us, building on the work we have done, and thereby changing the stories we tell.As a molecular biologist and eye researcher, I spent close to 50 years engaged in this work, in the field and in the laboratory at the National Institutes of Health. Here, in 1981, I founded the Laboratory of Molecular and Developmental Biology at the National Eye Institute, serving as its chief until 2009 (and now Scientist Emeritus).All along, as I produced more than 300 scientific articles and reviews, I knew I eventually wanted to be a storyteller in the more traditional sense – an author of books and short stories. Realizing I would need to sow the seeds for this vocation before I retired, I began to write short stories, letting my imagination roam free.After publishing a scientific book on vision and genetics, Gene Sharing and Evolution, (Harvard University Press, 2007) I decided to turn my hand to fiction, publishing a novel, Jellyfish Have Eyes (International Psychoanalytic Books, 2014), based on my own research into jellyfish vision in the mangrove swamps of Puerto Rico.More recently, I have completed a memoir, The Speed of Dark, about my life in science, and the people who have mentored and inspired me. These include a number of influential scientists and my family: my father, Gregor Piatigorsky, who escaped poverty and pogroms in Russia to achieve international fame as a cellist, and mother, multi-talented heiress Jacqueline de Rothschild, my wife, Lona, and our two sons.From my parents, I inherited both a love of art, and a propensity for collecting it. I have found myself drawn in particular to Inuit art, fascinated by its folkloric forms, tactile textures and stories of transformation, survival and the sea.It took a while for me to recognize that my preference for Inuit carvings of shaman transforming into various species was linked with my interest in evolution. These transformations impress me as artistic representations of the continuity within the animal kingdom, humbling the idea of our superiority, and reflecting a deep and unwavering equality and respect for all species.They also raise more questions than they answer, as is so often the case with art, science and life. It is our work then to keep asking questions as we move into uncharted waters, forming and reforming the stories of our own evolution from the fragments of answers we find. Some dispatches from my journey are posted here on my website.