Through the Equation

I stared at the computer screen as if I could become one with the computer through sheer willpower alone. That’s what happens when you work at a problem for over twenty-four hours. I could have given up a while back, like after the first hour, but when I had first started working, I had felt like I was on the cusp of something big, something important. The words “zero point radiation” echoed through my head, and no matter how I manipulated the symbols, I couldn’t capture the exact meaning of those words. The equations would come close, yet never exactly encompass my thoughts. It was exactly this close, yet always so far.

The equations flowed through my mind, and I felt that was the essence of zero point radiation. I dived into the equations from a different angle, not looking for the exactly correct equations, the right symbols, but the ones that skirt the idea, that approximate the essence of my thoughts. Like skipping a stone around a vortex, my mind whirled in an ever tightening arc. The equations fell into place, showing me the outline of the truth I had been looking for. My heart quickened as the world slowly made more sense than it ever had before. I felt it, I felt that I was about to make the last jump, the last equation that would make it all crystallize.

I was through. I could see the entire universe, the way it was all connected, from the alpha to the omega. There was just too much to share, too much to explain to everyone, so I let go and basked into the glory of it all.

*

You ever have an idea that you couldn’t explain at a particular point in time, and when you are talking about it, you know that it’s brilliant, but the words slip away from you like an otter doused in Vaseline, and instead of sounding brilliant, you sound like you “have a mouth full of stupid?” (Thank you Howard Tayler for passing on that beautiful phrase.) This is the end result of several of those conversations. I’ve gotten into several arguments that revolved around the idea perception determining our reality, and could never quite pin down what I was trying to say. It goes to show how bloody stubborn I can be when it comes to this sort of stuff, which is why I write; I need a way out for everything I think, and there aren’t very many people that are willing to put up with me when I’m hanging on to a topic like a bulldog clamped to your leg. I often get told “Drop it” when I keep arguing way past the moment the argument was over.

Instead, I keep turning the thoughts in my head, like the character in this story, coming at it from different angles, until finally “Synthesis!” That isn’t to say that I’m going to give up on the topic, because I might find yet another angle that I like better, but for the moment, this is as good as it gets.