Interesting Peoples

The world is full of interesting people. People who does exciting things that make difference in this world. Doing things that have an impact. We love telling stories about such people. I am talking about anyone we know about who is not our friends or cousins or their friends. The Darwins and Watsons of biomedicine, the Einsteins and Feynmans of physics , the Musks and Jobs of the Tech world, The Spielbergs and Kurasovas of the movies, the Bethovans and Paganini's of the music,  and the list goes on. People who inspires us, people who reminds us about possibilities of being a human, people who reminds as the most of us are mere mortals.

Today I visited the SPY museum in D.C. A fascinating palce. It is an interesting and inspiring place. The entire field of spying is founded on the deep rooted mistrust between humans. It is a profession where almost all the vices on humanity is a job requirement. As part of the job, a spy may have to lie, cheat, kill. They have to do things are generally considered illegal in most parts of the civilized world, for the sake of greater goods (so it says). Visitors will be first introduced to some of the superstars in the spy world. Dimitri Bistrolyotov, Morten Storm, Mata Hari and many more. They all had to pay great prices for the being a spy. Many of them were killed, incarcerated, tortured. Those who stayed alive had to pay the price with their freedom by leading a secret life in disguise. These are people who committed to a profession for something they valued most at some point in their lives. One of the display use an interesting acronym for the motivation for someone becoming a spy: MICE (Money, Ideology, Coercion, and Ego). The museum is filled with stories of near and distant past of international espionage, war, murders and personalities.

What got me interested in was the creativity, smartness and brilliance of many of these people. For example Bistrolyotov, a Russian spy of Stalin era, we very fluent in twelve languages. They have come up creative ideas to get out of tight spots. They enjoy the Adrenalin rush from such situations, and it would probably is the biggest drive for them. They make and use vary innovative contraptions (listening devices, bugs, code breakers, concealed weapons...) which looks like pure magic to me. These are people who are willing to give their life for their profession. These are not normal people. These are very interesting people, almost like the geniuses mentioned early on, maybe at a smaller, individual level. But interesting nevertheless.

Now the spy work is digital. Crunching big data to find pattern, relying on machines and artificial intelligence to predict events before it happens. In a way we mortal biomedical scientist are also doing similar things. Spying on our body and cells to identify the rouges and unruly to terminate them before they can cause havoc. In that way I am also a spy. Err... may be the like of Mr. Q. Looking at their life and life style, I am quite happy withe boring life I am leading. I am happy read about all these exciting people by sipping a cup of black tea.