If I could have been a marine biologist I would have, but I

Host:
The pier stretched out into the evening ocean, its wooden planks creaking beneath the weight of the wind. The sky was a bruise of indigo and gold, the sun drowning quietly behind a horizon lined with salt and memory. Waves lapped against the pillars, softly violent, carrying the smell of seaweed and distance.

Jack stood near the edge, his hands tucked in his coat pockets, the breeze tugging at his hair. His eyes were fixed on the water, reflective and tired, like someone searching for something he’d lost long ago.

A few steps away, Jeeny sat on an overturned fishing crate, her bare feet dangling above the waves, her skirt fluttering like a thought caught in motion. Between them lay a folded newspaper, its headline half-hidden beneath a shell. On the corner of the page, a quote caught the last of the light, its words printed in simple black ink:

“If I could have been a marine biologist I would have, but I didn't have that kind of intelligence. Numbers were never my strong point.” — Nicolas Cage

The tide sighed, as if it had heard the line before.

Jeeny: smiling softly “I like that. It’s so… honest. No pretension, no ego. Just a man admitting he couldn’t be what he wanted.”

Jack: snorts lightly “Or it’s just resignation dressed up as humility. ‘I’m not smart enough’ — people love to say that when they don’t want to try.”

Host:
The wind picked up, rattling the loose rope tied to a post. The sound of it echoed like a distant memory, the whisper of a life that might have been.

Jeeny: “You think it’s that simple? Maybe he’s just self-aware. There’s a kind of grace in knowing your limits.”

Jack: “No, Jeeny. That’s not grace — that’s surrender. The world’s full of people who wanted to be artists, scientists, explorers, and ended up accountants because they believed they weren’t smart enough. The truth is, intelligence isn’t what stops people — fear is.”

Host:
The waves struck harder, a splash of cold mist hitting Jack’s face, but he didn’t flinch. His voice, when it came again, carried the rough edge of conviction — the tone of someone who had lost faith in excuses.

Jeeny: quietly “And yet, not everyone’s built to chase the impossible, Jack. Some people look at the ocean and see mystery; others just see math. You can’t fault someone for where their mind drifts.”

Jack: turning toward her “But isn’t that the problem? We keep dividing dreams into subjects. As if imagination belongs to the artists and logic to the scientists. What if he had tried — what if Cage had studied plankton instead of pain? Maybe he’d have found something deeper than acting.”

Host:
The sky darkened, and the first stars began to appear, faint and flickering, like thoughts hesitating to be born. A fishing boat passed in the distance, its light bobbing, its engine hum blending with the sea’s rhythm.

Jeeny: “You talk as if intelligence is a switch anyone can just flip. But it’s not. Some of us are drawn to numbers, others to narratives. You can’t force your mind into a shape it wasn’t made for.”

Jack: “But isn’t that what growth is? Becoming what you weren’t made for?”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “Or maybe it’s about honoring what you already are.”

Host:
Her voice carried like a note across the water — soft, sincere, but with a steel beneath it. The moon rose higher, casting silver across her face, making her eyes glow with the kind of understanding Jack had always distrusted — the kind that didn’t need to argue, because it believed.

Jack: “You really think it’s okay to settle? To just say, ‘I wasn’t smart enough,’ and move on?”

Jeeny: “It’s not settling if it’s acceptance. Maybe he wasn’t saying ‘I couldn’t do it.’ Maybe he was saying, ‘I found something else I love more.’ Sometimes, the unlived life gives meaning to the one we choose.”

Jack: “That sounds poetic. But you don’t wonder, even a little, what it’s like to stand on a boat in the middle of the Pacific, counting whales, cataloguing coral, mapping mystery?”

Jeeny: her eyes softening “Every day. But maybe longing is the price of being alive. We’re not meant to have every dream; we’re meant to cherish the ones that got away.”

Host:
The wind softened, the waves slower now, as if even the sea was listening. The moonlight drew a path across the water, and for a moment it looked like a road leading to some distant promise.

Jack: sighing “You make it sound noble — like missing your dream is some kind of virtue.”

Jeeny: smiling “Not noble — human. We don’t fail because we lack intelligence. We fail because we’re busy measuring the wrong kind of it.”

Host:
Jack’s eyes flickered toward her, and for once, he had no rebuttal. The ocean filled the silence, eternal, indifferent, but also comforting in its constancy. He stepped closer to the edge, looking down into the black water, where his reflection wavered, distorted — one face, split between doubt and possibility.

Jack: softly “So maybe it’s not about numbers or intelligence. Maybe it’s about curiosity — the will to keep diving, even if you never reach the bottom.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s what love of life is — not mastery, but wonder. You don’t need to understand the ocean to admire it. You just need to stand on the shore and listen.”

Host:
The wind shifted, carrying the sound of distant laughter, the clink of bottles, the melody of a world still turning. The moonlight turned the waves silver, and the sea shimmered like a living mirror of thought.

Jack: smiling, finally “You know, if I’d been a marine biologist, I probably would’ve spent all my time writing poetry about fish.”

Jeeny: laughing “And if I’d been one, I would’ve spent mine talking to them.”

Host:
Their laughter blended with the sound of the sea, gentle, free, fragile — like a promise whispered between the stars and the tide.

The camera of time pulled back, the two silhouettes small against the vast ocean, their conversation dissolving into the rhythm of waves. The quote on the paper fluttered once, then was lifted by the wind, carried into the darkness — not lost, just set adrift.

Host:
And as the night deepened, one truth lingered, soft but steady —
that intelligence is not a number, but a hunger.
That failure is not ignorance, but choice.
And that sometimes, the smartest hearts are the ones that still wonder
how the sea sings, even when they never learned to count its waves.