Chapter 23 Section 22

"I felt like I was hearing something completely nonsensical when Foo brought up those things I said in high school to me." "No, that's not true," said Chantal; "as far as I've known you, you've probably said those things. It's perfectly true to you. Remember when you first studied medicine?" He never dared to underestimate the premonition one gets when one chooses one's vocation.He is well aware of how short life is for this choice.Once the wrong choice is made, the consequences are irreparable.He had found to his distress that no occupation of any kind had a spontaneous attraction for him.Adding to the bewilderment, he considers the possibility of each profession one by one: prosecutors, a profession that spends their lives punishing others; school teachers, children's jokes Object; scientist, but technological advances have brought more disasters than benefits, and interior decoration (what interests him is the memory of his carpenter grandfather) has always been disgusted by him the slaves of fashion; the poor pharmacist, who sells only bottles and jars.He was puzzled: what should I choose as my life's work?His mind fell into a most uncomfortable silence.In the end, he chose medicine, not because of some ulterior preference, but because of a kind of altruism: he believes that medicine is undoubtedly the only profession that does more good to mankind than harm, and its advanced The negative effects of technology on human beings are minimal.

But it didn't take long for disappointment to follow.In his second year of practice, he was in the dissecting room completing his assigned task, when suddenly he was taken aback by a certain behavior of his own: he could not do justice to death.But soon after, he discovered that the truth was worse than he had imagined: he couldn't treat each corpse the same, and couldn't ignore its inevitable and blameless imperfection.The clock in the dissecting room determines everything about it, its blood, its intestines, its pain. He was sixteen when he told Forte about his distaste for that wink.He was only nineteen years old when he made up his mind to study medicine; from then on, he had to learn to forget, so he couldn't remember what he had said to Foo three years ago.It was too bad for him.Memories might also alert him.It might help him see that his choice of a career in medicine was naive and self-aware.

So after studying medicine for three years, he gave up his choice with a feeling of hitting the rocks.What kind of choices should we make in the days to come?What would he do if his heart remained as silent as before?As he descended the wide outdoor escalator of the Faculty of Medicine for the last time, he felt as if he were standing alone on a platform without a train.