In pursuit of perfection

Frustration. I would have to say that has been the word of the day, and also of too many 'todays' during the past year. I am really frustrated of being frustrated too, which makes it even more confusing, and frustrating.

There are two things that currently make me frustrated. Firstly, the one that has kept me frustrated throughout the last year; my stupid depression that tires me out so easily, far too easily. Today I met my psychiatrist. It was one of several meetings that felt totally useless to sit through. He held a lecture about how I am a "vegetarian", and how important polyunsaturated fatty acids are, especially omega 3 and omega 6. And also how my blood values would be good to check up again, since I might not get enough iron in my food, since I have this vegetarianism debilitating me. I just don't know how this information would help me. I have been on a meat-low diet a couple of years now, that this suddenly now would give me a depression seems rather far-fetched. Neither are there any conclusive proof that omega acids really make a difference for anyone. I could of course stop being so bloody stubborn and just do what my psychiatrist (today read: nature healer) tells me, but unfortunantely I am equipped with a heaped barrel of criticism of sources (which he does not seem to be), and foremost a general scepticism directed towards popular nature-cure medicine. And it is strong. But if he wants to check my blood for vegetarianism-caused injuries, I'm not going to stop him. Best not. Not much point to it. But until proven otherwise, I will continue to strongly doubt that all keeping me from being depression-free are a lack of omega fatty acids and/or iron.

The second source of frustration are events at my workplace. I am trying to reply to a couple of reviewers that recently read my paper submitted to European Journal of Neuroscience. The nature of the comments forces me to take another 6 pictures of my material. I am staining, and microscoping, over and over. All in pursuit of that perfect picture, taken of a perfect staining (strongly stained cells, low background staining), perfectly representing and corresponding to the data presented in the text. When a decently good photo is compiled in the photo software, the file is saved and opened in Photoshop. Thereafter I manipulate it so the cells look stronger, and the background lower, all the time printing off the attempts to see how it might actually look on paper when it is finished. Because, of course, what you see on the screen is nowhere near what it looks like when printed. If the picture is still good enough, it is thereafter outlayed in the Canvas software, fitted with scalebars, arrows and text. And hopefully, after all this has been done, and redone a couple of times, the figure is good enough to send to the reviewers, hopefully accepting my paper and publishing it. Just believe me, it takes some time to accomplish. It is hard for your regular scientist to take a perfect picture of a biological material. But it is also hard for that same scientist not to try. And for some inexperienced scientists, as myself, it is hard not to feel frustration in that process.