Avi Loeb

I was tenured at Harvard and I asked myself, okay, I'm a professor in astrophysics.

This is an arranged marriage, but I'm actually married to my true love because I can pursue the same questions using the tools of science.

Now, it clearly makes me very different than my colleagues.

Because, you know, I don't care what they say.

I know what the important questions are.

And actually, frankly, the public knows what they are.

It's just some aberration within academia that these questions are not being pursued.

And I'm not afraid of not being liked because...

you know, there is a bigger reward at the end, which is let's figure out something really fundamental.

And this really motivates me.

And if I were to meet my young self, I would immediately connect to that person.

And people that knew me back then as a kid, they say I haven't changed much.

I was good in sports.

I could have, you know, I was offered to be a member of the Delta Force in Israel.

I said, no, I prefer to use my head for thinking.

And then

Today, I jog every morning since COVID.

I jog every morning at sunrise three miles in the company of birds, bunnies, ducks, wild turkeys, and it's wonderful.

I feel much more accomplished doing that than any title that I would get in academia.

I don't really care about that.