Research is like hunting

 

I came across this funny meme and found that I could relate to it on a different level.

In my day job, I work with people orders of magnitude more skilled than me in our domain. I learned early on, that my best hope for contribution was to find new technologies, and hopefully thereby provide value, kind of like how a hunting dog helps a hunter.  

What I have realized is that in the role of hunting dog, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.  You never see the field quite the same way the hunter does.  The effort to find value is never guaranteed.  Nevertheless, I find the process of hunting interesting.  The dog looks happy right? You just hope the dog is looking at 3 birds :)