My motto is more, 'If you want to find something new, look for

Host: The night air was crisp over the laboratory courtyard, the kind of cold that made glass breathe and steel hum. Through the high, luminous windows of the chemistry building, light spilled into the fog, turning the mist into a golden haze of invention. Inside, a single lamp burned over a cluttered workbench — beakers, notebooks, coffee rings, and the faint scent of acetone and caffeine mingled like the perfume of persistence.

Jack stood by the table, sleeves rolled to the elbows, staring at a tangle of formulas scrawled across a whiteboard. His jaw was set — the look of a man caught between doubt and discovery. Jeeny entered quietly, carrying two steaming cups of coffee. The sound of her steps was soft against the linoleum, but her presence — unmistakable.

Host: The clock on the wall ticked past midnight. The world outside was asleep, but in here, thought was still alive — restless, volatile, human.

Jeeny: (placing a cup beside him) “Yves Chauvin once said, ‘If you want to find something new, look for something new! There is a certain amount of risk in this attitude, as even the slightest failure tends to be resounding, but you are so happy when you succeed that it is worth taking the risk.’”

(she smiles faintly) “You remind me of that quote right now — standing there like you’re about to rewrite the laws of the universe.”

Jack: (laughs softly) “Rewrite? No. Just trying not to blow it up.”

Jeeny: “Same thing, in a way. Creation and destruction — they live in the same lab.”

Jack: (glancing at her) “Chauvin understood that. The courage to chase what doesn’t exist yet — it’s reckless, but it’s the only way anything new ever happens.”

Jeeny: “And he was right — the risk isn’t the failure itself. It’s the echo. The silence that follows when something you believed in falls apart.”

Jack: “That’s the resounding part he meant. When you fail at something small, it disappears. But when you fail chasing something new, it echoes.”

Jeeny: (nodding) “But so does success. And that echo — that joy — can fill a lifetime.”

Host: The camera panned slowly, taking in the glimmer of glassware, the flicker of equations on the board, the two figures suspended in the tension between imagination and reality.

Jack: “You know what I love about that quote? It’s simple, but it’s brave. He’s saying discovery doesn’t come from caution — it comes from curiosity that ignores its own fear.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The problem is, most people spend their lives protecting themselves from failure, not realizing they’re also protecting themselves from invention.”

Jack: “Because failure makes noise.”

Jeeny: “And noise embarrasses the comfortable.”

Jack: (smiling faintly) “But the uncomfortable change the world.”

Host: The light from the lamp flickered, casting long shadows that stretched like time across the room. Outside, a foghorn sounded faintly from the bay — a low, mournful note against the night’s stillness.

Jeeny: “You ever wonder why the most brilliant minds in history were half-mad? It’s not arrogance — it’s faith. They believed in something no one else could see yet.”

Jack: “Faith in possibility.”

Jeeny: “Faith in risk.”

Jack: “Faith that the unknown isn’t the enemy.”

Host: He took a slow sip of his coffee, eyes tracing the lines of the formula before him, as if searching for meaning between numbers.

Jack: “When I was a kid, I thought science was about certainty. But the older I get, the more I realize — it’s about daring uncertainty.”

Jeeny: “It’s the same with art. With love. With life. The first step is always blind. The courage comes in lifting your foot anyway.”

Jack: (quietly) “You ever fail at something you believed in?”

Jeeny: “Many times. Each time it hurt less — not because I stopped caring, but because I learned that falling doesn’t erase the truth of trying.”

Jack: “That’s beautiful.”

Jeeny: “It’s necessary. Every risk is a rehearsal for resilience.”

Host: The heater kicked on, humming softly — warmth and sound mixing into the silence between their thoughts.

Jeeny: “You know what I think Chauvin meant when he said it’s worth it? Not just the success — the moment you realize you became someone brave enough to take the risk.”

Jack: (nodding slowly) “Yeah. The discovery isn’t in the result. It’s in the courage.”

Jeeny: “And courage is its own form of creation.”

Host: The camera shifted focus, the lens catching the reflection of the whiteboard in Jack’s eyes — the world reduced to equations of hope and hazard.

Jack: “You think risk ever gets easier?”

Jeeny: “No. But it gets quieter. The fear never leaves — you just stop negotiating with it.”

Jack: “And you start creating in spite of it.”

Jeeny: “That’s the secret to everything worth doing.”

Host: A drop of condensation slid down the side of her coffee cup, tracing a line like the path of a thought finding its way to truth. The room had grown warmer, but the air still carried that electric sharpness — the tension of something about to be born.

Jeeny: “You realize what’s hidden in Chauvin’s words?”

Jack: “What’s that?”

Jeeny: “Joy. He wasn’t talking about achievement. He was talking about the happiness that comes from trying something no one else dared. The aliveness of it.”

Jack: (smiling) “The happiness of the risk itself.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The leap is the victory, not the landing.”

Host: The clock struck one, its chime soft, echoing through the vast laboratory. The fog outside had thickened, but inside — inside there was clarity, the kind that only comes when purpose outshines fear.

Jack: “You know, maybe that’s what separates explorers from spectators. The willingness to fail spectacularly just for the chance to touch something true.”

Jeeny: “Because in that moment — that second of discovery — you’re free. Free from fear, from approval, from limits. Just… alive.”

Host: She set her cup down beside his notebook, her reflection merging with his on the glass. The hum of the lab machines filled the silence that followed — mechanical, human, eternal.

And over that quiet music of invention, Yves Chauvin’s words burned like a small, steadfast flame:

Host: That the search for the new requires the courage to be wrong.
That risk is not recklessness, but reverence for possibility.
That the greatest discoveries are not found in success,
but in the moment you dare to reach past fear
and touch the unknown with wonder.

Host: The light glowed brighter for a breath,
the formulas gleamed like constellations on the whiteboard,
and Jeeny whispered, almost as if to the night itself —

“Maybe the risk isn’t the danger.
Maybe the risk is the doorway.”

Jack smiled, the fatigue falling away from his face.
He turned back to the board, lifted the marker,
and began again.

Host: And there, in that fragile hour between failure and revelation,
the human spirit — flawed, fearless, and curious —
kept burning.