Mathematics

I am not great at believing in the mystical. I think it is because I was raised a Catholic and have had a life full of unanswered prayers. I wouldn’t say I am totally unreligious. But even when I was younger, years before Karl and Daniel, I grew tired of looking for answers where none could be found.

Maybe that is why I loved mathematics. To properly know mathematics is to know the only thing that can be assuredly known. Politics and sociology and history and psychology have facts you have to interpret. But in mathematics, facts are just facts. There is no arguing. There is no left-wing or right-wing algebra. There is no sin in geometry and no guilt in trigonometry.

Mathematics is the purity of peace. Except, of course, it is also as mysterious and enigmatic as the whole of life, and expecting it – or anything – to conform to what I wanted it to be was a mistake. And that is the most devastating thing of all. When the logical world we have sought out crumbles to dust in front of our eyes.