As a research assistant in an academic department, I scurry around for obscure pieces of information and track down footnotes. I usually debate why this info is relevant when I get the project description. I too want to be convinced of the merits of something before I do it. So when I’m asked to survey US graduate schools of public health to figure out how many offer courses on global health inequalities, or when I’m asked to find out whether such-and-such a drug (say, a blood thinner) hastens death, I ask why. Sometimes, I get a good answer. Sometimes not. It’s a job, after all, so I do my work. But I also know that time is valuable, and that I could be doing other work.

Here here for social movements being places of rebellion. But who says old people can’t rebel, too?