VOICES: BLAIR

out collecting porcelain.” That was fun and great. That for the most part has been kept. I remember there was a couple that came over—Washington friends—and she walked in and said, “Oh, this living room is the most serene and peaceful.” And I said, “Yeah, I love this room, and I often read in here.” And a few minutes later, he came in. He said, “Well, you’ve got a lot of space to hang pictures.” But I don’t hang pictures because I don’t have the kind of pictures I want. And I love the emptiness.

I end up writing a great many letters in my life. And I like the serenity of [the space]. I require a bit of aloneness. I don’t want too loud, too packed, because I’m trying to learn things that are more difficult than I was educated to do.

I feel that there are so many new tools and new equipment now that need to be added to the neuroscience vocabulary. Two years ago, I started giving awards, and the idea is thinking of the future and the next generation. Psychiatrists should have a knowledge of what is going on preclinically and in the research labs because they’re going to be using it sooner than before. You look now at what people are thinking about in neuroscience; they’re not just finding the right medication, they’re looking at a whole social and environmental situation of the patient. They’re looking at, for example, inflammation in people who are depressed, and they’re looking at the immune system. We gave one grant [to a researcher] who works on autoimmunity. A great many young people are interested in neuroscience, thank God.

The figures are increasing so hugely right now with Covid, and so many more young people are having real problems. I think we’ve seen, in the last two years, a great many people take an interest in mental health. Historically, federal money has been placed more on cancer research, heart research, and diabetes, but there’s a real need because now we do have more to do. But you need people who are inventive and want to explore things that have not been explored before.