"[T]here are lots of things that one does which are essential, indespensable for survival and which is foundational for everything else, about which people never ask... "What's exciting about it?" What's exciting about breathing for example. ...[I]f you stop breathing, you are no longer. ...You're aware of breathing sometimes. It's not that you're completely unconcsiously invisible, but you don't ask that question. What's exciting about... living itself? Of course there are ups and downs. There are dramas in life, but people don't live because it's exciting. People live because it's natural for them and because that's what they want to do, despite everything sometimes, or in some lucky cases, because of some things. ...But people live because it's a basic and natural way of existing as humans, as indeed, biological creatures... [S]cientists, when they are unhampered and unencumbered by those dictates of sociology... where you have to publish in certain ways because you want to enhance your career, because you want to achieve some status, because you want to... ensure you have a certain standard of living and so on. If they are doing science where they do science because, almost, they have to, because that's their existence... If I lost my job... I have to be able to live somehow, but let's assume that I have some kind of income, and I have to move to and live in isolation. I think after... the initial period of being really depressed... "Why am I stuck here?" and so on, I think I'd end up doing science, because that's... who I am."