Infinity and I
I always hated maths. They seemed dull and with shapes too complex. It was always about simplifying stuff. People just made up a few questions and tried getting it solved. Like putting together hundreds of earphones in your pocket and taking it out after a commute and solving them all. Why are you making it too complex in the first place? Just let it be. Let hundreds of earphones be separated on its own.
Maths classes were at a whole different level. We learned formulas and solve the equations. Teachers gave a question and if the students did solve it too quickly, just add a variable and ask us to solve it again and again. ‘That’s really interesting, isn’t it?’ He used to say when we finally got our answers.
How can I have known? Infinity and I would be stuck together even after the angles the geometry gave me? It used to amuse me, how we are training for nothing! Solve this and that, within this set time period, and get your marks. It is the most basic thing you could learn; how will you work in the adult world if you don’t know the basics?
Alright, it’s turning out like a rant. But you know what I’m talking about. Back to the topic. Infinity and I never could look eye to eye. It was always me thinking, this sign is not good enough to be what they are calling it! ‘An infinity, wut?’ It starts when I start writing and ends when I take my pen off the paper. Uh-Huh, an infinity you say, well I ended it!
Feeling proud and true I used to return home, and never look at the infinity. The next day, the whole thing would repeat. Banging my head, I would just lie down on my desk. When is this ever ending? This feels like an eternity! Or an infinity!
Now many years later away from the world of mathematics, when taking a bath, I think of all those dreadful moments and ask myself why did we study those things? And an answer slips inside my head: To solve infinity. The mathematicians aren’t people who teach people equations and give marks when they get it right and cheer along with another question. They are the people who see the Universe in a different way. They see the Universe as one of the earphones in hundreds of other earphones. And have this ridiculous obsession to solve it. No matter what, we need to solve it.
I once heard a story about a professor who spent his whole night in a hall solving a mathematical question. He forgot to eat his food and didn’t even know the night was as it brought out a brand-new day. He kept on solving it. I’m talking about this level of obsession to solve the nature we are living in. How crazy would someone have to be to try and solve the Universe? Most of us, just accept the fact that we are here to earn a living rather than just live. And here are the people figuring out why are we living and for what purpose!
I always thought infinity was a beaten-down eight. Just a great figure eight, or a tiny infinity! John Mayer know what I’m talking about!
Unravelling the equation of the Universe! A sentence to explain what the hell are we doing on this planet. And one of them is the infinity. When I first looked at infinity, I saw a shy figure who couldn’t open to someone because they thought it was too complex and tried different formulas to open it up. Without success, they cowered around to see if anyone does figure it out. Newton couldn’t, Einstein couldn’t, and Feynman couldn’t. Can anyone of us do it? Surely, but you do have to take the maths class from kindergarten to high school learning all the basic rules and training your mind into thinking mathematically and look for hidden complex issues in the universe. Maybe after that, you could grasp what infinity is! That is what our maths teacher are doing daily.
I have found that rather than going nuts about not being able to solve something, you just hang out with them, like let it be rather than jangling up more of the equation, it will just come to you. That’s why Infinity and I don’t fight anymore. We are like friends who don’t really talk but just stare at each other looking at each other’s perfection and imperfections. Accepting the duality and not being all to fussy about each other’s quirks!
