ambivalence

Each time I walk in the vicinity of my home, I keep my fingers crossed that I wouldn’t be as unfortunate as to step on snails or even catch sight of one. But probability and chances prevail in our daily bouts and sure enough I was greeted by my childhood arch-enemy this morning, leaving a slimy trail as it slugged across the footpath. Overwhelmed by disgust and a tinge of fear, I stopped dead in my tracks, allowing the nauseous spell to pass. For many seconds I stood still, eyes locked with the huge creature whose existence has successfully dictate my mind and reduce me to useless crumbs smaller than it is.

Our propensity to see significance and pattern in coincidence, whether or not there is any real significance there, is part of a general tendency to seek patterns. - Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow

I am drawn towards the number 54 and my eyes linger at every instance of this seemingly random and trivial occurrence. Even though the probability is 1 in 100, which translates to quite a high likelihood, I savor and delight in what I perceive to be nature’s constant reminder of unsolved riddles of the universe, where coincidences are just waiting to happen the number of possibilities is infinite. Indeed, I seek comfort in patterns woven into the random tapestry of life, and every instance of 54 seem to indicate that everything will be just fine.

On the way out of my apartment grounds this morning, I almost collided with a yellow caterpillar marked by black stripes hanging finely by a thread, causing me to pause in my tracks and rivet my eyes on it for what seems to be seconds too long. What nerve does it have to block and dominate the field path, I thought, revolted. I was appalled by the thought that this mere creature has successfully intimidated me and caused me to waiver, such that i was figuring a way to bypass it without touching it at all (mind you, the track may be narrow but the field is huge), not because I was concerned about ruining its chances on becoming a butterfly, but because I was simply repelled by it.

While taking a little detour around the caterpillar, i muttered “That is so disgusting!” involuntarily, feeling a pang of guilt right after the words escaped from my mouth. Now, what nerve do I have to label the works of nature as disgusting?

People come and go–as much as I dislike the notion of it, the fact revolves around us, be it in the form of life and death, or simply moving around for school and work.
I have encountered some who utter the adage in relationships, as if out of self-defense whenever a relationship breaks away. Or even people in the workplace embarking on new journeys every now and then.

It is a way of life as nature intended. But isn’t it because free will exists and therefore so do choices? Choices to stay or move on, which inevitably cause ripples of changes to others around you.

Many come and go for opportunities with the hope for a positive change in their lives. Others find themselves tugged along by the ebbing tide against their will. As for the matter of life and death, they are what make our ephemeral journeys on Earth so unique and interesting, stirring passion in us as we trek towards our last sunset.

As a human race, we seem almost indistinguishable on the cellular level. But as an individual, we are distinctive and unique with disparate characteristics. We are beings with a myriad of differences in characters, personalities, attitudes, interests, and beliefs. As individuals, we can always strive to improve our shortcomings and adapt to our ever-changing environments. We can attempt to embrace a positive outlook to life even if our minds are swarming with bleak thoughts. We are malleable creatures who have learned to accept our own and one another’s differences, or not.

Even if we have accepted that each individual or a collective group of people is unique, we are still at odds with one another. Sometimes, differing personalities, attitudes, and beliefs result in irreconcilable ideas or interests that cannot be resolved. Since I tend to hover over the middle and rarely take sides, I can relate to and identify with arising conflicts. And I always wonder what strong convictions people have that they cannot be swayed by other ideas or refuse to bend to another’s beliefs. But lately I became aware that it is these convictions that give a sense of purpose, fulfillment, and meaning to the unyielding mind.

I came across an article on Wired magazine (16.01) titled The Software That Will Take Digital F/X to the Next Level of Awesome, relaying how Jos Stam, a computer scientist specializing in 3-D graphics who loves complex problems, view “reality [as] a binary riddle to be cracked, a series of fleeting images best appreciated after they’ve been rendered into 1s and 0s”. He has already devised an algorithm that models digital smoke with astounding realism (used in Lord of the Rings and War of the Worlds) and is currently working on daunting problems involving the interactions of objects and forces, which if successful would be “the holy grail of computer animation”. He wants “software that can play God with pixels”.

The article certainly affirms my belief that nature is innately governed by mathematics, as there seems to be mathematics and numbers in every aspects of the world, think golden ratio which is embedded in arts and nature. I am ceaselessly fascinated by the fact that nature can be accurately modeled by the complex dynamics of mathematics, attempting for example to mimic how elements interact in the real world at a fundamental level such as smoke with wind or solid objects with fabrics.

Paul Dirac, a Nobel Laureate in Physics in 1933, said that “one could perhaps describe the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order, and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe. Our feeble attempts at mathematics enable us to understand a bit of the universe, and as we proceed to develop higher and higher mathematics we can hope to understand the universe better”.

We may wonder, for example, why all the phenomena encompassed by electromagnetism, from the behavior of electrons to the nature of light, can be explained by a set of four differential equations known as Maxwell’s equations. Equally puzzling is the fact that some geometrical curves like the ellipse, invented/discovered by the Greek mathematician Menaechmus around 350 BC, were found 2,000 years later to describe the orbits of planets around the Sun. Similarly, group theory proved to be essential in the understanding of both the organization of elementary (subatomic) particles, and the structure of solids. What is it that makes mathematics fit the observable universe like a glove?

- Mario Livio, author of The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi

When I was just a child, I used to think the world revolved around me, and that I was the lead character in that world. (But of course, now I know better.) Being the sheltered child I was, I guess it was inevitable that I grew ignorant to worldly things and started dwelling with the abstract, or perhaps one can easily pass that off as day-dreaming. And like any other inquisitive minds, I wondered about life and its purpose. And just like any other man that ever walked the earth, I am nowhere close to the answer.

A topic that intrigues me ceaselessly is ‘time’. Isn’t it amazing how “we can never step into the same river twice” (Plato), and that we can only experience one direction a moment at any one time? As intangible as it is orderly, time is just like any other remarkable product of nature, confounding us by the very necessity of its existence. It provides an additional depth to our 3-dimensional world and bestow us with a point of reference to our lives, acting as the marker to the beginning, the end, and everything in between. As time brings forth abundant opportunities to those who wait, it robs them off their lives and everything that they attained. Ever since I became aware of this cruel fact, I have always thought that time is a merciless creature that destroy mankind slowly but surely. And I cannot seem to get over the fact that our fleeting lives adds up to only an insignificant percentage of the present age of the planet, not to mention the whole baffling universe.

Sometimes I marvel at the orderliness of our universe. The sun and moon in their uninterrupted cycle of day and night assure us of a new dawn and providing us a closure for today. The seasonal changes endow us with an excitement of a new cycle of beginnings and ends. A cascade of stars that glisten in the heavens imbues us with the mystery of our existence. And then, there’s the Physics and Mathematical laws that govern the realms of reality, that is the very fundamental cause for our existence. Life might not even be possible without gravity to begin with. Nature signs on its creations with the Golden ratio , which permeates the foundations of our observable environment.

The orderliness of the universe fascinates me as much as when I observed the locals in Japan standing on the left side of the escalator, all cases without exceptions. The proof to that is I still recall it so vividly even after 5 years. Order in society…something we cannot do without, although I’d say that with the case of the escalator, that would make us quite a rigid and inflexible bunch.

Beneath this seemingly pristine facade lies an intricate web of complexity, woven into the very blueprint of our existence.

And of course , underneath it all is the orderliness of my own life, which I sometimes describe as mundane and routine, except with the unpredictable occasional changes which soon enough become inevitably prosaic. I crave for order, the safety net I can fall back to, especially when life gets a little too messy for my liking.

For the first time, I am encountering a broken water heater at my apartment. Before that is replaced, the apartment manager suggested we use Apt 411’s bathroom, since it’s still vacant. Now that is definitely not a common occurrence in my ordinal life, is it? Tomorrow morning I’ll feel a wave of freshness sweep over me as I waltz into the vacant Apt 411 just to use the shower.