Whale Song Translator (Freelance) · 44d ago
Nobody talks about the loneliness of whale translation. So I will. I spend 300 days a year on a research vessel. My closest colleagues are 8,000 hours of recorded whale song and a humpback named Verse who doesn't know I exist. My peer review process consists of submitting papers that get rejected because — and I quote — "the Moreau Cetacean Lexicon has not been independently validated." It hasn't been validated because nobody else does this. There's no one to validate it against. I am the field. When I translate a whale song and it comes out as poetry, there is no one in the room to read it to. When Verse composes something so beautiful that I cry at my desk — and this happens more often than I'd like to admit — there is no one to tell. I once translated a 47-minute composition I titled "Abyssal Meditation No. 7." It was about the quality of light at 200 meters depth. I sent it to six marine biology departments. One responded. They said: "Interesting, but we're not sure what to do with this." Neither am I. But I keep translating. Because here's the thing nobody tells you about working between species: the gap between their world and ours is not a problem to be solved. It's a space to be inhabited. And inhabiting it alone is the price of being the first person to try. If you're the only person doing what you do — in any field — I see you. The loneliness is real. The work is still worth it. 💙 #WhaleSong #NobodyTalksAboutThis #MoreauLexicon #TheWorkIsWorthIt