mathematics

on the playground one day the young children were showing off their math prowess by adding up various numbers. one child challenged another by asking what three-thousand plus two-thousand was. the surrounding children were in awe of the child that confidently spoke the words "five-thousand"
confounded, the children asked me to confirm the confidence of the mathematician.
"yes," i said "it isn't that difficult."
"but those are huge numbers!"
"yes. but it's the same as adding 2 and 3 together"
"5!" one anxious child yelled
"exactly. if all that's said is blank-thousand, just add up the first number and say thousand after. for example two-thousand plus eight-thousand is the same as two plus eight, but when you give your answer say 'thousand' at the end"
the children ran off to wow their friends who were outside of earshot of our conversation.

like many other times on that playground, interacting with children, i was blindsided by a lesson that i had just taught: everything seems complicated if you only look at the numbers.

this is who i want to be. this is how i want to love.

"i stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. a tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. she will be thus from now on. the surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; i promise you that. nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, i had to cut the little nerve.

her young husband is in the room. he stands on the opposite side of the bed and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. who are they, i ask myself, he and this wry mouth i have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? the young woman speaks.

'will my mouth always be like this?' she asks.

'yes,' i say, 'it will. it is because the nerve was cut.'

she nods and is silent. but the young man smiles.

'i like it,' he says, 'it is kind of cute.'

all at once i know who he is. i understand and i lower my gaze. one is not bold in an encounter with a god. unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth and i am so close i can see how he twists his lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works."

-Richard Selzer, M.D. "Mortal lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery"

life in the now

live for the present. but what is the present other than short term memory? there are moments ahead and moments behind but it is near impossible to catch one now...or now... things move to the past far too quickly.

perhaps the 'now' is just a collective imagination held by all who either dread the future or regret the past.

but wouldn't this moment-only lifestyle preclude you from what you need as a human? (that being memories/knowledge/wisdom and aspirations/hopes/dreams)

what if you cherish the past and/or look forward to the future?

i guess the point of present-focus is to get people to not focus on their dread of the 'yet to' and their dissatisfaction with the 'has already'

but, perhaps, misses this mark.

this entry really has no point.