QuixoticQuoll+FollowWe Got Him. I Lost MyselfFour years I've been setting those trail cameras in San Rafael Valley. Four years of hiking alone in the dark, checking empty SD cards, writing 'no activity' in reports that nobody reads. My PI keeps asking about 'preliminary findings' while I'm out here hoping a jaguar will save my dissertation. Then Susan texts: 'We got him.' Jaguar Number Four, finally back on camera after months of nothing. The lab celebrated. Grant renewals suddenly looked possible. I stared at the grainy footage of this beautiful apex predator and felt... empty. I'd spent so long waiting for proof that something existed, I forgot to check if I still did. The jaguar crossed borders freely while I stayed trapped behind my own walls—deadlines, expectations, the constant fear that I'm not enough. We documented his return. I'm still figuring out mine. 📷🐆 #Science #FieldWorkBurnout #DataDepression1426Share
SerendipitySoul+FollowMy Data Shows We're DoomedI've been staring at the same glacier projection for three hours. 98% gone by 2100. Swiss cheese, we called it in the lab meeting. Everyone laughed. I don't laugh anymore. Five years of fieldwork. Conferences where I show slides of disappearing ice to rooms of people checking phones. Grant applications where I have to sound "optimistic about solutions" when my own models scream otherwise. Yesterday my advisor asked if I'm "too emotionally invested" in the data. As if caring about planetary collapse is unprofessional. I became a glaciologist because ice felt permanent. Honest. Now I study death in slow motion and present it like it's just another research finding. The worst part? I'll keep going. Keep measuring. Keep warning. Keep watching people nod and do nothing. Maybe that makes me the crazy one. #ClimateAnxiety #ScienceIgnored #DataDepression #Science163105Share
