Calculus is the Math of Change

Each day drags on

like the tail of the serpent

carving each day into the sand

The powdered essence of days past

a continuation of what came before

(The circle of samsara

I search for a crack in the ring

so that I may elevate myself

above the absurd

Or a groove so deep

that I could plunge

into its comforting darkness

and forget the shape of days

As I sit here now, it becomes ever apparent to me that the chiefest difficulty in writing is confronting the blank page. The page seems so self-contained. It has a finite area and yet it feels endless. Perhaps that sentiment is owed to the nature of potential, that which the page promises and threatens. Before me lies an unwritten contract, an obligation: whatever goes upon the page must improve upon its purity and blankness lest it be a transgression. This makes it difficult to find a foothold and reason enough to start. It reminds me of the potential energy curves in chemistry classes, and the repeated phrase “activation energy”. In all of this, as if intentional, there is woven a metaphor for the effort it takes to take the first step. The perception and clarity needed to see an opening, and the will to walk on through. In order to overcome this activation energy, I employed the use of a catalyst in the form of a poem.

It was written in a time of anguish for me. I was in college at the time, at the beginning of the spring semester. I was a double major, physics and mathematics, but classes had yet to start. In fact, I had yet to enroll in them. My life had become, slowly but surely, a web of lies one strand at a time. I had lied to myself, telling myself that pursuing a Ph.D. in physics is what I wanted to do in life. I lied to my family, telling them I was happy and thriving. And lastly, I lied in telling them I enrolled in classes even having my parents drive me to my dorm.

I don’t know how it happened. Somewhere along the winding lines of textbook passages, in the forests of people, or between the prison walls that are the beginning and ending of class hours I had gotten lost though I was exactly where I was “supposed to be.” Because that’s what it is isn’t it? Whether we like it or not we always end up caught in a causal chain like products on a conveyor belt. First elementary school, then middle school, high school, then college preferably in some high-paying degree, finally ending up exactly where you were supposed to be. The plan projected on me by parents, teachers, and other adults, eventually accepted by me and everyone else, generally followed this mold. In my youth, I adopted intellectual pursuits as a means of escape from the harshness that often visited me in everyday life. I clung to something, as everyone does, and it just so happened that this something was considered to have inherent value. And I had a knack for these things; physics, mathematics, philosophy, literature, and whatever else I found stimulating. As soon as adults, especially my parents, got wind of this they praised me and bound these things to my identity, and I followed suit in assimilating these things to my being. This is “who I was” for some time, but after years of university - wave after wave of classes crashing on me - this paint began to wash away.

Losing my identity was painful. I did not have any idea how to cope, and as soon as I felt the passion for physics and math fade I just delved deeper into my studies only to exacerbate the issue. Eventually, I simply could not continue. I stopped doing much of my work and stopped going to lectures. I only passed due to consistently high test scores which only enabled me to continue my behavior. During my time in school, I had shifted my focus from my classes to literature and philosophical ideas burying myself deep into the words of books. This was an escape; an intentional lostness of the mind much like the drinking, oversleeping and other habits I had developed as a means of avoiding the endless shortness of each day. Days that were empty, and yet felt like an eternity with such an intensity that forced you to confront the time wasted and life unwell spent.

Within my first few semesters, I had exhausted all the reading material I owned leading me to frequent a bookstore not too far from the school. It was a small and cozy little bookstore that had a great assortment of classic literature. It was run by an older couple, who always wore peaceful expressions and spoke little. On one afternoon, after oversleeping, I had a strong desire for fresh air, and since I had just finished reading Notes from Underground, my last unfinished book, I decided it was high time to visit the store. I greeted my suitemates for the day and left the dorm for the hour walk, making sure to take the scenic route. I find great enjoyment in walks such as these. On long roads through suburbs and through nature trails for long hours my mind can wander off leaving me unbothered.

Upon entering the bookstore with the quiet push of the door I greeted the owners; the older woman at the counter and her husband in the back on a ladder propped against a bookshelf. I walked on through the corridors of books carefully examining each one tracing over the spines. I ended up where the Dostoevsky novels were although I had already read everything he had written. I looked over all of his major works, and I found something unexpected in the spot where Notes from Underground had been just a week prior. It was a thin, small, black book with no inscription on the spine. I grabbed it off the shelf to look at the cover, and upon closer inspection, to my surprise, there was no title. It appeared to be a journal, and this theory was confirmed by the word “Moleskine” engraved on the back. The store did carry an assortment of journals, so I thought that this must have been misplaced. But upon opening the journal I was surprised to find it nearly filled with handwritten words in cursive. This was someone's personal journal.

Standing there I began to read the contents of the journal.

I am deeply unhappy. I have decided to confide in you what has gone unexpressed, unsaid, and ultimately unfreed, trapped within myself. It’s been too long since someone has actually heard me, listened to me. My pain goes unnoticed. I feel like I haven’t decided the fate of my own life. I do not find my reflection in the world, and it makes me feel as if I do not exist at all.

This struck a chord in me, and the feelings behind the words resonated with my own. I wanted to keep reading, but I wanted to do so in my dorm. So, I stuck the book in my bag as casually as possible trying not to appear as a shoplifter. I also didn’t want to leave without purchasing anything so I grabbed Life for Sale, one of the few Mishima novels I hadn’t read. I made my purchase, had a brief chat with the lady at the counter as usual, and promptly left.

I returned to my dorm and closed the door. I plopped down on my bed tired by the long walk and the anticipation. I reached into my bag and drew out the black book. I quickly opened it and read it with intense focus. And… I must say, it moved me and terrified me to the core. The sadness of the writer was starkly apparent. It was sharp and stabbed at the heart with a prick aided by the sharp wit of the writer. He gave no name, only identifying himself as a man. He had been a physician but, as he explains, retired early. He shared with me the pains and small triumphs of his everyday living, often in a rambling manner. What terrified me was exactly what moved me. Namely, the similarity between our experiences. And I mean this not in a superficial manner; we’ve led very different lives. But, the feelings and thoughts that were expressed by the words felt as if they were lifted from my own mind, surfacing on the pages of this journal.

It wasn’t all sad or dark. The man often expressed sentiments of hope and beauty. You couldn’t help but empathize with him, seeing the world through his eyes and appreciating his beauty. But that darkness was there, and there were feelings of hopelessness. This journal was necessary for him. He was much older, living with these feelings for far longer than I have, and the feelings, needing to be expressed, poured out onto paper.

It ended abruptly which was worrying. It left me with a momentum that churned inside me with nowhere to go, with no release or conclusion. I had to leave. I went on a very long walk till around midnight, and on this walk, I thought many things over. By the time I returned to my room I made a decision: I would not be enrolling in classes for the semester.

And here I want to state that it isn’t that I simply dislike physics and mathematics now along with everything that once interested me. I just simply did not know. I didn’t know if I wanted to dedicate 10 years of life to physics. I did not know who I was. It felt as if all of my actions up until that point were for everyone else. Everything was an optimization problem. I was always trying to minimize their displeasure and to maximize the stability of my family. Tension had been building up like a rubber band being stretched taught, and the words of that black book had snapped it propelling me and the feelings in me to motion.

I called my parents and almost immediately I got into screaming matches with them. Of course, I had rehearsed these conversations, but the words came more clumsily and angrier than I had intentioned. This was very sudden for them. I understand that and that it probably hurt them too. But, I couldn’t help but delight in this interaction! The vitality that sprang from my chest into my voice was a manifestation of my will. It was a good feeling. I had finally begun to burn down the web of lies. I had understood how Mizoguchi, from The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, had felt.

Of course, things didn’t go completely smoothly, and there were difficulties ahead. Eventually, though, things calmed down and my parents came to understand. To satisfy my need for expression, I spent the next half-year writing a novel. I always liked the idea of writing and did think that I had some skill in it. I wanted to explore my creativity, and by late that summer I had finished it even having it published. Unexpectedly, the book did well netting about $20,000 over time.

It has been 5 years since then, and I have since graduated with a bachelor’s degree. I stayed a double major, but I did so for myself this time. Though the book did well I didn’t want to make a career out of writing and walked away from it without looking back. My life has improved though there is still more to be done. I’ve held onto this book because I felt it needed a better ending. In this space that was left, I wanted to write my story of recovery for whoever finds this little black book. I hope to help you if I can.