I Found Life in the Goo. I Lost Mine in the Process.

I was supposed to be fixing a propeller shaft. Instead, I found myself scraping black sludge off a ship’s rudder, hands shaking from too much coffee and too little sleep. I didn’t expect anything—just another sample, another late night, another dataset that probably wouldn’t matter. But there it was: DNA, alive and unbroken, in a place where nothing should survive. I sequenced it, logged it, called it ShipGoo001. Everyone laughed at the name. I tried to, too. But all I could think about was how many hours I’d spent chasing something meaningful, and how even when I found it, I felt nothing but tired. We keep looking for life in impossible places. I just wish I remembered what it felt like to be alive myself. #Science #LabBurnout #ScienceFatigue