trillonious monk

The better half of my pubescent years was spent learning formulas. A squared minus B squared equaled the sum of A plus B times the difference of A and B. This was called the difference of squares. When I learned about circles, their equations differed substantially. There were coordinates involved: Cartesian, polar, parametric. I did not understand the practicality of these applications, but I could have probably recited R squared minus 2cr times some cosine in Shakespearean iambic pentameter. Just because. Later when I taught grammar to undergraduate English students, I formulated grammar rules in variables of x and y. Because if X were an independent clause and Y were a dependent clause, then X and Y need not that painstaking comma if using any coordinating conjunction. X comma X was a comma splice. This was bad. X period X was grammatically correct. This was good. Formulas taught me there were definitive answers, even amassed in the world of infinite numbers and symbols. I saw a world pearl-lined with answers. Things could be equated to things. It was only a matter of logic.

But perhaps the most compelling part is when I turned twenty-three, packed two suitcases for London, and spent the next five months rejecting formulas. California to London was greater or equal to a distance of 5,000+ miles, my bank account favored subtraction over addition, and my slowly changing realities could not be divided into any recognizable parts. I knew what happiness had looked like before, but its symbol had now been effaced, replaced by some brisk walk in Hyde Park, sleeping overnight in Madrid’s dim-lit airport, getting rejected by really really smart phD institutions, because Ms. Rachel Trillo, we’ve had many desirable candidates this academic year, but we cannot grant you admission at this time.

The variables don’t match up. Scrupulous life enthusiasts differ from math enthusiasts only marginally. There’s a formula to things. Definitive equations and definitive results. But how does one explain the inexplicable when the odds are stacked so reasonably, so logically against you? Why am I the happiest I have ever been when this is the most uncertain I have ever been?

I have no direction. And yet I feel the greatest sense of purpose.

  1. morefunthanbeingsad said: FUCK YEAH THE WORDIEST WORDSMITH THAT EVER WORDED IS FUCKING BACK AND WORDING HER ASS OFF LIKE IT’S NOBODIES FUCKING BUSINESS!! GREAT FUCKING POST RACHEL. FUCKING ACE. 10 STARS. 5500 BONERS! YOU ARE THE FUCKING BEST!! MORE! MORE! MORE!!
  2. deathbedexistentialism said: Embracing uncertainty gives you freedom. Those who subordinate themselves to certainty have the diminished ability to realize the options to their avail. Good for you!!!
  3. moustachioed said: this purpose being?
  4. rachblog posted this