The Math Behind When Math Doesn’t Work
What Matters from Matters of Fact
“Cruisin’” (D’Angelo’s cover of Smokey Robinson) is the soundtrack of this Museletter for me. Particularly the line, “If you want it you got it forever.” What song’s on your heart?
Video below: Me reading this Museletter plus behind-the-scenes processes…
The Musings
“On a spectrum from 1 to 10, where are you, Emma, at in your life right now?”
I just met this man an hour ago, and already we’re both at home with one another, applying mathematical scales to life’s biggest questions.
I wish I could say 10. Actually, I kinda wish I could say 9… not because I’d actually be a 9 but because sometimes 10s are so good that you just know it’s simply TOO good that you couldn’t possibly say it out loud, you couldn’t possibly ever do it justice and boy does it deserve justice only the best for that 10 wait I had a point—-
“Eight,” I reply, honestly and also incompletely.
~~~
There’s always been a part of my soul where God’s sun forever shines. The place within me that it illuminates is beautiful, but the biggest blessing of this internal light is its warmth. It makes me feel seen and safe.
I can now find this space more easily than I ever could. The key wasn’t actually a key— it was a machete. Bushwhacking bushwhacking bushwhacking through all these weeds under all this darkness to build reliable paths (plurality!) to this sacred garden.
My forever home.
However, I will not put down the machete yet.
The safety I now feel isn’t the end of my journey; it’s the prerequisite for the future yet to come. This future will require MUCH more bushwhacking.
And this is when I start doing the math.
~~~
There are two types of infinites. Countable and, you guessed it, uncountable.
Countable infinites are things that can be listed in a sequence (like the counting numbers themselves, 1, 2, 3, …). You just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger and approach infinity without ever quite equalling infinity because as soon as you get to your biggest number, you can always add one more (just like how every time I think I hit my 10, I look for my 11). However, even though it never ends, you could assign a unique position in the number line to each element.
Uncountable infinities, on the other hand, can never be fully measured, not even in theory. There is just too much. Interestingly, these types of infinities aren’t reached by GROWING (i.e. adding one over and over)— they’re often about getting SMALLER.
For example, think of all real numbers between 0 and 1. Firstly, there are all the fractions you could think of:
1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, etc.
Then there are all the wonky numbers you couldn’t even begin to systemetize.
0.123456789...
π/4
√2 – 1
0.1001000100001...
Even if you spent forever writing them down, you'd still miss most of them. They don't follow a pattern. They just... exist, infinitely densely, between 0 and 1.
~~~
In the last Museletter, I wrote about my bottomless appetite. That felt good to just come out and say. So RELIEVING. It feels like how you know when some people FINALLY find out they’re dyslexic after a lifetime of gaslighting themselves that they were just dumb and think “omg that explains everything.”
My diagnosis?
I’M HUNGRY.
I’ve been so hungry that I starved myself for 16 years to try and prove to myself I wasn’t.
FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL
NEW ERA ALERT: Exploring the depths of my appetite.
It’s deep, it’s a little dark, it’s cold and yet getting warmer and warmer as I get closer and closer to my molten core but I’m not sure what will happen once I hit my magma because I know I’ll be wanting more— I can always take another bite of you, babe.
Appetite for love, for food, for thought, for word play, for too many things for me to list because it’s countably infinite and besides I’d rather go and DO them than stay and SAY BUT—
These calculations are a matter of life and not-life.
Given:
This body, which I’ve taken for granted for so long, is mortal. Therefore, The number of days I have on this planet is finite.
My appetite for life is infinite.
Conclusion:
I must strive for the uncountably infinite, the richness of the in-between.
Which is just my brain’s way of saying what my body has always known to be true:
Just as I hold the infinity between 0 and 1 (let alone 1-10) in my mind, I hold your body in my arms for this moment of time and feel what it really means to make something count. What it really means to matter.
After thirty years of number lines, I see so laughably clearly that: math only maths in consideration of the body.
I didn’t cheat death— I accepted it.
~~~
So here’s how I got 8:
I am and will be at an 11/10 (and the 11 is just getting higher and higher and this scale is completely nonlinear so really who knows what’s gonna happen) because I woke up this morning with a long list of people who I love who love me, too, and guess what I’m on that list now until the day this body turns to compost BUT
One day this body will turn to compost.
And so will yours.
And I’ll miss you. Or you’ll miss me. Yes, one of us will be missing until it’s the others’ turn to be missed by others…
Yes, the day I’m done living will come long after the day I’m no longer alive.
Or, if you read the last biweek’s Museletter, the day I reach the bottom of the bucket of popcorn will come sooner than the day I reach the bottom of my appetite…
My brain tries to help me strategize on how to get the most out of life, but time and time again, I realize— or rather, feelize— through my body and spirit is the only way to explore myself as wholly as I possibly can…
For example:
I asked Chat GPT a couple months ago “how know if fall in love”.
Girl boo tried to explain it to me but then I had a meta-moment where I caught myself asking a disembodied being something that I know inherently and anciently… BIBLICALLY, nah’di’mean?
So I’m writing a fun poem about that… stay tuned.
Anyways, alls this to say, I woke up this morning feeling a little down because I love life so much I could die, because I love life so much but I’m gonna die, because I love life so much and I’m gonna die
long before I satisfy my appetite so I’m looking forward to looking back on the rest of my life vowing to make the most of every bite I ever ate
So, yeah, that’s why I’m sticking with “eight.”
~~~
Looking forward: help me?
I have ideas at a faster rate than I can execute them (which is extremely high). So prepare yourself for more things coming my way. I’m figuring them out in the only way I know how: bravely. AKA publically and in real time…
For example, this Museletter can lead into:
A discussion on the math and history behind Cantor’s diagonalization argument, which is the heart of Cantor’s Theorem: The set of all real numbers between 0 and 1 is uncountable.
A poem I’m writing about how LOVE- it’s another set of LUNGS
An update on where I’m at artistically— literally. Basically, I’m taking a risk and investing in an artist’s studio and I would explain how I have done the math all kinds of ways and why I concluded it’s a worthwhile investment.
A personal reflection on this specific Museletter creation process, and how it was evidence to me that I am on the right path…
Amongst a bajillion other directions.
Love, it’s another set of lungs, and you help me breathe, dear reader. Respiration… Inspiration… InSPEERation…
So tell me what questions YOU have? What directions YOU’RE curious about? What is coming to life or death in YOU? Pleasepleaseplease aerate me and let me know by commenting or messaging.
Inspeeered as always 🫶