Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete.

A resident's surgical skill is judged by their technique and speed. You can't be sloppy, and you can't be slow.

The diagnosis was immediate: Masses matting the lungs and deforming the spine. Cancer. In my neurosurgical training, I had reviewed hundreds of scans for fellow doctors to see if surgery offered any hope. I'd scribble in the chart 'Widely metastatic disease - no role for surgery,' and move on. But this scan was different: It was my own.

Science is based on reproducibility and manufactured objectivity. As strong as that makes its ability to generate claims about matter and energy, it also makes scientific knowledge inapplicable to the existential, visceral nature of human life, which is unique and subjective and unpredictable.

The good news is that I've already outlived two Brontes, Keats, and Stephen Crane. The bad news is that I haven't written anything.

Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still, it is never complete.