When you start a new job at a big company, you feel really incompetent and self-conscious because everybody else has been there so much longer, yet little old you know nothing about how any of it works or what’s going on.

But then you go walking around talking to people, and you realize nobody actually knows what the hell is going on, and they just pretend they do.

It’s kinda like that.

But sometimes you meet some really competent and knowledgeable people who seem to have a better grasp and perspective on things. It’s good to not just listen to these people, but to bounce questions off of them. They don’t judge, because they know.

I’m always reminded of the scene in Alice in Wonderland where the talking flowers explain to her that they can talk because they’re planted in firm soil, while those planted in soft soil are asleep all the time.

If it was any other name at the bottom of that quote I would’ve doubted.

The ocean is absolutely PACKED with life like bacteria, viruses, and other microscopic organisms. Even if the salinity is high, it’s unlikely that you would get an ideal “pickling.” Hypothetically, if were there very few of those around for some reason, maybe? Maybe for a little bit. A more likely situation may be one where an organism was eventually fossilized due to being covered by something. And we ALL know being fossilized is better than being pickled, right?