People of Science with Jon Choy

You can listen to this episode on apple podcasts as well!

Synopsis

In this installment, we chat with Lucas who is a 4th year neuroscience PhD student at Stanford university. Join us as we discuss his hobbies outside of science, journey to science, research projects, struggles/successes, mentors, the neuroscience program, and future career outlook. 

Takeaways: 

Stanford neuroscience PhD: Lucas had nothing but good things to say about the program as a whole, citing its collaborative nature and resources (4 years guaranteed funding, and highest stipend in the country). Also no required TA duties and those who do partake are compensated on top of their stipend. 

Hangry and TD: Lucas is heading two research projects, a basic science one under both Karl and Liqun and a clinically related one only under Karl. The former involves interrogating how “feeling compels action”—Lucas notes that while the physiological state of being hungry and thirsty has been well characterized, the correlated behavior under different stages of hunger and thirst is not well characterized (think why we act the way we do when starved or parched) . His second project is on Tardive Dyskinesia, a neurological disease affecting movement. Interestingly, this disease is quite elusive with little information on its origins and development—Lucas’s project aims to bring light to this. 

Get some hobbies: Lucas underscores the importance of hobbies, pointing out how we are complex beings requiring passions outside of our work. I particularly like how he phrases this message—that we should not have such a narrow periphery of accomplishing the next best thing, because this behavior breeds ambition that can easily subsume us. In fact, as Lucas further details, siloing ourselves into this mental state is counterproductive and will inevitably make attaining our goals more difficult. For Lucas, powerlifting, playing the drums, and reading are outlets he engages in to combat these inherent difficulties of research/science. 

What can’t you live without? During his undergrad, Lucas wanted to become a medical doctor, but potentially for the wrong reason. For a while, his career aspirations originated from him being able  to picture himself being one. However, when asked “do you want to become a doctor at all?” he realized that his previous approach to career choice was wrong. He suggests not ask questions in the affirmative, but instead asking questions that get at the core of what you desire. Rather than asking yourself questions that affirm a potential scenario (e.g. can you see yourself being a medical doctor?), ask questions that will reveal what matters to you (e.g. what can’t you see your life without?). The answers to the latter question will help clarify your vocational callings. 

Titans/giants:  Lucas attributes much of his success to his amazing mentors in undergraduate, emphasizing the value of good mentorship. For instance, he points out that many applicants who receive interviews for graduate school admissions typically have good mentors. In addition, good mentors are the keys to success as he points out how these are the people who will write letters of recommendation for you and provide career guidance based on past experiences and their network. For him, those were his direct research supervisors throughout his undergraduate experience (Chris Hartzell and Hyojung Choo @Emory and Mala Murthy and Sebastian Seung @Princeton). Currently, in graduate school, he is co-advised by two “titans” in the field (Karl Deisseroth and Liqun Luo) who have served him well these past four years. 

Rollercoaster: In his personal life, Lucas has had his fair share of struggles—dealing with the passing of an immediate family member and being recently diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. These experiences have brought new perspectives to his life, namely when balancing work and life. He provides an encouraging analogy for getting through tough times:  like stocks in the stock market, our lives will have low points but they will recover, reaching new highs. This analogy can also be appreciated in the typical science experience, riddled with low lows but also high highs. 

Timeline: In one year, Lucas aims to have manuscripts done for both papers. In five years, he sees himself in a postdoc position at Harvard or Yale; these academic postdoc positions typically have higher salaries so this would make starting a family more ideal. In 10 years, he sees himself as a professor on the tenure track at R1 university, leading his own lab. 

Connect with Lucas

LinkedIn; X: Lencriv, email: lencriv@stanford.edu, Instagram: reviewsofreads

Transcript

[00:00:00] Jon: For those listening, which is probably just like my mom or like not a lot of people but Lucas is a fourth year Stanford PhD graduate student.

 First I wanted to get to know you as a person. And so, my first question is do you have any hobbies outside of science? What do you like to do?

[00:00:24] Lucas: So I think balancing work and play is really important. And so outside of science, I make a pretty fervent effort to do things that I enjoy doing. One of them is I play music, do drums, mainly played a lot growing up. And then I sort of abandoned the hobby because it’s difficult to like lug around a drum kit.

And I sort of rediscovered it in graduate school. That’s something I do quite frequently. I read a lot of books. I actually just started a bookstagram page where I just review random books out into the ether and spend a lot of time working out as well. So I train mainly for powerlifting and bodybuilding.

So there’s like a good lifting community here at Stanford that I interact with frequently. I’d say those are the main things my free time.

[00:01:15] Jon: Do you have a favorite book so far? Or a book that you’ve been reading?

[00:01:18] Lucas: So I just started the guns of August. That’s what I’m reading right now. I’d say my favorite fiction book all the time would be a time to love and the time to die by Eric Maria Remarque, which is, A novel that I think gets a lot of times overshadowed by his magnum opus, which is All Quiet on the Western Front, but he’s written a lot of other books that are fabulous.

To me, it’s one of the greatest works of World War II fiction. And a sort of non fiction book that is a 10 out of 10, in my opinion, would be Until the end of time by Brian Greene, who is classically trained as a string theorist and theoretical physicist, but wrote this very beautiful book that kind of details interpretations of the human condition and the lighter physical law, which is really great.

I’d say those, those two are. Top, top of the list. 10 out of 10s.

[00:02:17] Jon: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing you’re sort of reading stuff outside of the scientific literature. So it’s good that you’re sort of exploring that. Yeah, definitely gonna have to get that book Instagram I’ll plug, plug, plug you in.

[00:02:31] Lucas: Reviews of reads on instagram

[00:02:33] Jon: Okay, reviews of reads. Okay. Yeah, I’ll plug that in on the website as well. But yeah, no getting into science. Maybe you can take us back when you’re first interested in science and take us through that journey

[00:02:44] Lucas: Yeah. Yeah, this is a great question. So, I was initially drawn to science actually through the lens of medicine. I remember I, read Ben Carson’s memoir when I was really young and I was enamored by this idea that sort of afflictions of the brain could be fixed surgically. And I sort of initially gravitated onto this idea of working in the clinic as a neurosurgeon.

And in my head, it sort of linearly followed, okay, if I want to do this neurosurgery thing, then I should study neuroscience. So I ended up embarking on this path. Taking college classes starting at 15 to eventually take neuroscience. So chemistry, biology, and then ended up taking upper level neuroscience in this class.

And it was kind of ironic because I was just like senior in high school and sitting next to these seniors in college and learning about the brain. And I just became so fascinated with like the intricacies of how things work. I remember like listening to the lectures on action potential propagation and ion channels.

And I just thought it was fascinating. I was stupefied by the fact that there were these tiny molecular machines doing things that were and that that those sort of micro scale phenomena gave, you know, rise to the emergent properties of the brain that we all experience and live every day and It was through that experience that I sort of developed a fondness for science.

I mean, I had always been, for neuroscience specifically, I’d always been interested in science generally. You know, when I was super young, I was really interested in zoology and my inspiration was Steve Irwin, and sort of shifting on from that though, um, yeah, I ended delving more deeper into neuroscience.

The professor invited me to work in her lab, and that was the first time I had an experience where I was seeing kind of the, things that I had learned in the class on classroom unfold before me in the lab. And it was just like this very beautiful moment where I kind of got to see how science was done and how knowledge was manufactured.

And I think that was something that stuck with me throughout the duration of my And what I ultimately realized was that I wasn’t interested in medicine and the things that, you know, truly stirred my soul and truly inspired me were doing pure basic science. And so that’s how I ended up getting drawn into neuroscience and then the rest of the rest of that is history.

[00:05:28] Jon: maybe you can talk us through, you know, how you, how you came to Stanford and sort of propelled your science career from, from there.

[00:05:38] Lucas: So I went to Emory for my undergrad, and going into Emory, I knew I wanted to study neuroscience. I was also sort of somewhat interested in philosophy specifically like philosophies of mind, but generally I knew I wanted to study the brain. And I actually started working in a lab. Chris Hartzell is his name, old guy who just recently retired and he did a lot of preliminary work in ion channel physiology.

And so I was initially drawn to the idea of working in these kind of small molecular machines. And first year freshman year, I just started working in this lab doing all sorts of experiments and sort of failing and succeeding in some areas. And I stayed in that lab all four years. Toward my latter years, I was co advised by another PI, Hyojung Choo, who was sort of more in the realm of muscular biology.

So I wasn’t doing much neuroscience, but my role in both of those labs was to actually work on the more computational side. And so the, sort of large piece of work from my undergrad was developing a machine learning based tool to analyze histological sections of muscle tissue. So I ended up developing this program called Myosoft, automates a process of analysis that’s commonplace for people who are analyzing sections of muscle, which is typically done manually. It’s very tedious and time consuming.

Aside from that, I also worked I trained at the Neuroscience Institute of Princeton, PNI under the tutelage of Mala Murthy, as well as Sebastian Seung, sort of doing work systems, computational, and connectomics in neuroscience. And I also trained at the University of Pennsylvania. These were both summer programs and I was working more on neuroexcitability in the role of sodium leak channels, on sort of properties of neurons and namely how sort of calmoudulin or calcium binding proteins alter their activity. So I had this kind of wealth of eccentric and sort of interesting research experiences.

And then aside from that, I also, I mean, a common theme is that I had fabulous mentors, both of the both mentors who were my direct supervisors. And sort of for those who are leading me in the lab, but also people outside of the lab. So I was part of the IMSD program while I was at Emory. And they were the people who sort of shepherded me through undergrad and taught me how to navigate the academic ecosystem.

And so the sort of amalgamation of that mentorship and my scientific experience sort of propelled me to enter graduate school. And I applied straight out of undergrad. I sort of knew that I was competitive enough after talking with my mentors and knew that that was my calling and I didn’t really want to waste any time.

So I ended up applying to a bunch of graduate programs. I sort of naively thought that like probabilistically, if I apply to a bunch of them, that like, I’ll just get interviews at a couple. I ended up. Interviewing at almost all of them and getting into almost all of them. And it was a fabulous time.

It was right before COVID started. And I came to the Stanford interviews, actually the last in person interview. I had actually turned down my Hopkins interview the week after to go on spring break. This was before everything, you know, went to pieces. And yeah, I had a great time here. I never envisioned myself coming to the West Coast.

I actually only applied to three schools here. And of the three schools that I applied to and was admitted to here, I only ever thought Stanford would be convincing enough for me to come. I grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, and yeah, I came here and was just blown away by sort of the collaborative nature that exists here, the students, the faculty, the science that was going on the California ethos so far as it exists in the kind of silo of Stanford.

And I thought that that was something that I wanted to do for my 20s. It was a risk, but I think it really paid off coming here.

[00:10:04] Jon: And that brings us to sort of where you are now, fourth year in sort of neuroscience labs. I know you mentioned your amazing mentors along the way. Do you want to talk about sort of your mentors right now and how your experience has been sort of working under them and also the program as a whole, how your experience has been with the program?

[00:10:27] Lucas: Yeah, so I’m co advised by Karl Deisseroth and Liqun Luo, and for those who are not familiar with those names, these are people I idolized and are titans in the field of neuroscience. I mean, Liqun sort of developing a lot of pivotal tools that are used still today in the systems and developmental neuroscience field, as well as being sort of at the forefront of a lot of the work initially done in the development of certain circuits in the common fruit fly.

And Karl Deisseroth, you know, impending Nobel laureate, I think for primarily for the discovery and development of channelrhodopsins, which are tools that are used to activate neurons by expressing a protein that makes them sensitive to light. And also, since then has, you know, amassed a lab that’s incredible. It’s really groundbreaking science and so coming here, I knew that those were two labs that I was really interested in and I was keen on joining them primarily for a collaboration that has existed long standing for many years. So there are 2 other students who are co advised working on similar things.

And that being kind of primary survival drives of hunger and thirst. How are those represented in the brain? How do they effectuate behaviors and I think both of them are absolutely incredible. I think Karl has such a keen understanding for the field sort of understands how the direction of where things are going, how to contextualize data and information in ways that are like really impressive.

Also sort of is such a great sort of leader of the lab sort of understanding how to position people to succeed and how to build a lab and a project with, you know, the correct pieces of sort of intellectual abilities from people and skills and expertise as well as materials.

And I think Liqun is just borderline genius, I mean, an encyclopedic knowledge of neuroscience, literally wrote the textbook on neuroscience and is someone who is a superb mentor and I have never met someone who is so attuned to the small aspects of of experiments. And so Karl and Liqun synergize in this really great way, where Liqun is sort of very attuned to the sort of minutiae of what’s going on in the experiments, and Karl is very attentive to sort of the broader scope of the direction of the project and the lab in the field.

And I think that has served me really well.

The neuroscience program here is, you know, top in the country for a reason. I think they have a commitment to serve their students. It’s incredibly well funded. You have four years of guaranteed funding with, to my knowledge, the highest stipend in the country.

And no TA requirements, and if you do TA, you’re compensated for your time. So that sort of incentivizes actually teaching experiences in general, and there’s a lot of great programmatic infrastructure, whether it’s, you know, the curriculum or events or committees and things like that that keep everything operating well.

And so I have nothing but good things to say about the program.

[00:14:10] Jon: I’m really interested about learning, learning more about the details of sort of your research and sort of how your project works being co advised by two really amazing professors if you were to describe your research to someone who maybe isn’t familiar with neuroscience , how would you describe your research?

[00:14:31] Lucas: So what I’d say is that there’s this pervading intuition that sort of, that there’s this relationship between how we feel and what we do. And so whether that’s, you know, a crying newborn being tended to by a mother, or whether that’s kind of devouring a sandwich after you’ve skipped lunch our lived experience sort of embodies this relationship and this intuition.

That being said, we don’t really understand how sort of internal states are these subjective feelings of need are related to how we behave and a lot of neuroscience thus far has been dedicated to sort of understanding how the brain transduces signals of physiological need. So, for example, how do you, how does the brain know you’re hungry, or how does it know you’re thirsty, but sort of the accompanying subjective qualities.

Of hunger and of thirst, and of these primary survival drives which ultimately lead to performance of behavior, something that’s been super elusive for a long time, and a lot of psychologists and philosophers and neuroethologists have speculated on this and sort of the goal of my project is to bring a lot of modern neuroscientific techniques to bear on answering this question.

And so what we do is. We have a combination of sophisticated behavioral analyses and behavioral assays, as well as means of understanding the activity of populations of hundreds to thousands of neurons at single cell resolution. As well as means of sort of independently activating populations of neurons in the brain. And so we’re sort of bringing all these tools to bear on answering just like what, how does feeling compel action. That’s kind of my primary work.

I also have a second project that is solely in Karl’s lab, and that’s more clinically related. So people who have who have severe psychiatric afflictions, so psychosis, schizophrenia, etc., they typically take a drug that is called haloperidol, as well as other antipsychotic drugs.

And these drugs, the way they act is they basically they basically antagonize the level of dopamine that’s in the, in the brain. And dopamine is involved in a variety of things. But one thing that people don’t give it enough credit for is its involvement in movement and what ends up happening in these patients who sort of chronically take these drugs is that they develop a motor disorder called Tardive Dyskinesia, and TD is sort of characterized by these non volitional movements of limbs and extremities, as well as a lot of orophacial movements.

So tongue protrusion, jaw tremors, and strange, aberrant, maladaptive behaviors. And this is, you know, a really serious problem. And no one knows how it works, and no one knows why it happens. And there is sort of a lot of of prevailing theories as to how this might work as sort of the cellular and internetwork level.

We actually don’t know. And so the second project is actually exploring how this disease originates and propagates across time, sort of identifying the neural features of the disease, relating it to the behavioral manifestations of that disease, and finally trying to implement solutions to fix it.

[00:18:22] Jon: Yeah, that’s really cool. understanding sort of the behavioral side of like feelings,

Makes me think a lot about like me getting angry when I’m hungry but also sort of the, the clinical aspect of your project too. It’s really cool how you’re sort of been able to branch out as well.

Following up to that, I’m sure there’s been some highs and some lows these past four years, sort of, in regards to your research experiences. I was wondering if you could share some, maybe some struggles, but also sort of some successes along the way.

[00:18:58] Lucas: Yeah. There’s definitely been, you know, a handful of struggles. My first year of grad school, I lost an immediate family and it was really difficult on myself, on the family. I think I’ve never been so paralyzed by fear and by despair in my life, and I think it caused, it sort of caused me to fundamentally reframe how I view time with family, how I view time with people and my relationships, and also how I sort of position myself with relation to science and my own ambition.

So that was something that was difficult for me. I Also, very recently was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, which is autoimmune disorder in the gut. And that was something that absolutely kind of affects my life, not necessarily my career trajectory. But it was something kind of that I had to come to terms with something that I had to sort of experience and go through. And something that, you know, I continue to work through.

And in terms of like scientific stuff like there’s always going to be like highs and lows, you know, there’s going to be periods where like things work or there’s going to be periods when things you know don’t work. I think kind of embracing that is like a fundamental quality in scientists— being able to ride the stock, like stocks, they’ll go up, they’ll go down, but like, inevitably, they will go up. And so you kind of have to trust in yourself and your ability to overcome these obstacles, I think, like, specific scientific obstacles are like, perhaps not, not necessarily relevant for your listeners.

And in terms of the highs, I mean, there’s also been plenty of highs, you know it’s a lot of like life highs whether it’s, you know, nieces or nephews being born, people getting married scientific highs of experiments working or getting results that are fundamentally illuminating some property of the brain or sort of illuminating some faculty of mental function.

I think that these are all things that like scientists. Like myself kind of aspire to have and so there are these like brief, like glinting moments where you do something right and it, you know, churns out the result that is beautiful or a result that makes sense and I think that kind of fundamental yearning for knowledge is something that like typifies this scientific experience.

[00:21:47] Jon: I think one aspect of science that you’re sort of hitting on, maybe, is that You know, there’s a lot of unexpected obstacles and maybe when , experiments don’t go, go the way you want that’s sort of difficult. How do you stay motivated during this time and to keep chugging, chugging along?

[00:22:05] Lucas: yeah, this is, this is a, this is a great question. There’s this very famous essay, and I’m going to try and recall it directly from saying Georgi, who was sort of polymath, but also. Did a lot of work in physics, and he was kind of searching for like the essence of like life, and he ended up working in cells and then atoms and electrons, and he kind of famously says that like he ended up working with atoms and electrons that have no life at all, and like somewhere along the line life has slipped through his fingers, and I think.

The ability for me and for other scientists to stay motivated is you have to always keep this broad goal in your grip and you kind of have to contextualize the work that you’re doing into some broad meaningful goal that you never lose sight of. And so, although during the kind of tedium of science and the things that you’re performing, experiments might not work, or you might get a result that kind of incrementally seems insignificant, and what I think is overall, you have to not let this broad goal of This broad goal that you have slipped through your fingers.

And so for me, that would be okay. Understanding this fundamental property about the brain or about behavior. And so when I think about the failures or the small successes of the work that I’m doing. It’s all incrementally, even if, like, minutely contributing to that broad goal. And so, I think the essence of my motivation is contained in my ability to kind of contextualize the things that I’m doing.

And also I think it’s, it’s good to just not have a life that’s defined by your own ambition, your professional goals. And so I feel motivated to do science, like on a consistent basis in large part because I dedicate a significant amount of time to nurturing other aspects of my identity and my passions that exist outside of myself as a scientist.

And I think that’s super important because it allows you to retract yourself from a difficult situation and, you know, really reaffirm that, like, you’re not just a scientist, right? You’re a human being that has, you know, a bunch of different qualities and things about them and, you know, relationships that are, you know, equally important, if not more important.

And so also being able to kind of pivot your attention. is something that’s also important because if you’re if you’re sort of always siloed with this very like narrow periphery just like looking at the science of what you’re doing and your ambition then your identity becomes somewhat subsumed under that and then it’s like a very tough hole to crawl out of if like things go bad because then it’s like you feel like your life is going bad so i’d say it’s like those two things.

[00:25:14] Jon: I love that sort of, you know, contextualizing what your work is sort of, knowing what the question is and knowing why you’re doing it. And then also sort of this idea of have other outlets things to do. Like you said, power lifting, playing the drums and reading all these things, I’m sure help you, you know, through, the mundane of research.

One thing I also wanted to hit on was I think graduate school, PhD is sort of unique in that The sort of career outlook is may look different for a lot of people you know, relative to other sort of professional degree programs. What is your sort of career outlook and maybe what is your one year, five year and 10 year outlook looking like for you, Lucas?

[00:26:05] Lucas: Yeah, yeah, I I have thought about this a lot more in the past year than I have in years past, I think, of towards the precipice of like my graduate career, it was sort of undoubtedly that I would pursue science, and that means, you know, becoming a professor and having my own lab and working at an academic institution. And so, throughout the duration of my PhD that ambition has been affirmed. But It’s also been challenged a lot. And so what I’d say is currently what I really want to do is to start my own lab and to mentor students and you You know, uncover the kind of majesty of the brain. I think that’s always been motivational for me. And that’s something that continues to be.

That being said, I think I’ve kind of peered behind the veil of working in academia a bit, a lot through experiences I’ve had through a fellowship. That I have here as well as my kind of conversations with postdocs and other faculty members, and I have become disillusioned, but also more informed, and I think it’s it’s just it’s difficult to to do science at a high level and the path of academia is not easy. And so what that means, what that means and what that looks like for me is just taking this information and making sure that I position myself in the right place to succeed.

So in terms of one year, kind of five year, 10 year plans one year is, you know, these two papers, they got to come out; they got to be done.

So I’d say in one year, I would love to have manuscripts prepared and figures done for these papers for the more clinically oriented paper I talked about, I would love for that figures and data to be done, you know, as early as this summer. In terms of five years I see myself, you know, in my postdoc, ideally working an academic fellowship position.

So I’d love to kind of go to the Society of Fellows at Harvard. Yale also has a sort of medical science fellow and so these are higher paying positions, which means I’ll sort of be more financially stable for like other things I might want to do with my life. So maybe within that time frame also includes like starting family. And then 10 years down the line, I see myself being, you know, a professor at an institution, probably, you know, an R1 institution, ideally top 10. I think I would want to do this at the highest level. And also, you know, probably like halfway through the initial tenure process. So maybe trying to come out with a paper to having some grad students and postdocs, just doing fundamental science.

[00:29:21] Jon: amazing I can just see your passion and research through my screen. So, so I think you would be amazing and sort of research and mentoring and as a professor.

One thing that I want to sort of end with is sort of what, what is a piece of advice that that you would leave listeners with maybe interested in applying to graduate or PhD programs and then maybe also just a general piece of advice for, for those listening.

[00:29:50] Lucas: Yeah, I’d say a concrete piece of advice I would give to, you know, anyone who wants to pursue graduate school is one, find the right mentor. Find someone who’s going to go to bat for you and who’s invested in the trajectory of your career, because those are ultimately going to be the people you call upon, you know, not only for letters of recommendation, but also for career advice, but also for kind of connecting you with people that matter for job positions.

And being able to position yourself in close proximity with people who care about you and care about your career, I think, is something that’s really important, you know, for a budding and growing scientist. No one does this alone. No one succeeds in isolation. I also think and this is from my observation, that people who succeed in graduate school interviews, and that means people who pass the initial bottleneck, overwhelmingly work in labs with great mentors and in labs that do just widely regarded excellent science.

And so I would urge, you know, someone who’s really interested in that to like put themselves in a position, you know, working and being able to learn from someone who’s a great mentor, but someone who’s also respected in the field for their work. I think that will really put you in a position to succeed and I owe a lot of my own success to people who did that for me.

In terms of general pieces of advice, I’ll give kind of a career one and I’ll give like a life one. I’d say as a career one, I recall a conversation early on with the then director of the MD PhD program at Penn. And he asked me if I wanted to be a doctor. And I was like, no, because I want to do science, but maybe I want to do medicine.

And then he asked me, do you want to be a doctor at all? And I think it caused me to kind of fundamentally reframe how I viewed that ambition. And I think a lot of the times we ask ourselves, Questions in the, you know, in the affirmative like I can see myself, you know, being a doctor and I can see myself winning a million dollars. But the better question is, what can’t you see your life without? And what is utterly fundamental to your envisioned future self? And so for, you know, those who are continuing this career in this path in science kind of yourself, what is fundamental? For the future that you see yourself and not necessarily what’s something that you can’t have.

And then in terms kind of life advice I’ll kind of leave with a quote from the book that I alluded to earlier which is that there’s these two characters, and they’re actually kind of describing their, like, fall into love together. And he says that their words were without meaning, and that which had meaning was without words.

And I think what the most important things in life are things that are not necessarily tangible, and things that are not necessarily explainable. And I urge people to really find that for themselves and find passion and love that goes without being said. Because I think that’s ultimately what’s going to lead to intrinsic fulfillment as opposed to, you know, a lusting after success.