Maths. Adding and subtracting. Multiplication. Division. Factors. Equations. It's all quite beautiful, if you're that way inclined.
In the US, Maths is called Math. It is singular. Here in Britain we have many forms of Maths. Across the Atlantic they only have one. I don't know what that says about the disparity between our cultures. It probably says very little, but then again, I'm not a linguist - I'm a gardener. Ask me about Begonias and I'm happy.
Everything nowadays runs on binary. That's just zeroes and ones. Two digits that rule the world.
001100000 0000110000 01100000110 0111111110
001100000 0001111000 01100000110 0110000000
001100000 0011001100 00110001100 0111111110
001100000 0011001100 00110001100 0110000000
001111110 0001111000 00011011000 0110000000
001111110 0000110000 00001110000 0111111110Yes, Maths is probably the answer to all of life's problems. Man turned to science because he was sick of the ambiguity of art. Art can be anything. That's the whole point of it, apparently. Think of the sleek beauty of binary....everything is either a zero or a one...no shades of grey, no awkward decimals or possibilities. It is beautiful because it is true. I think an artist of some kind once said truth was beauty. He was wrong, but it was a lovely idea. He probably lived before calculators we invented, so we can forgive his human errors.
Think of the ridiculous forms that man has invented in the pursuit of art: ice-dance, mime, synchronised swimming, the saxophone... and so many more. Why? Is it really so vital that we express ourselves. I think the world would probably be a better place with less self-expression. I know this is anathema to western culture, where we're supposed to encourage children to make self-portraits out of clay and tell autistic wrecks that the inky blobs they have drawn is art, but perhaps the world would be a better place with more self-repression.
Remember: Hitler was an amateur artist, not a weekend mathematician.
It would be lovely to think that there was a formula or equation underpinning our existence; that we could guarantee happiness by following a set pattern; that all our spiritual and moral ambiguities could be annihilated with a giant calculator.
Imagine Moses on the top of Mount Sinai, speaking in his booming voice to the Children of Israel. Rather than holding two tablets of stone he clutches in his hands two large CASIO calculators. On both of them is a number of wondrous holy significance.
Sadly, in his hurry to hand the words (or numbers) of God to mankind, Moses is carrying the calculators upside down and the number appears as a word: BOOBIES.
That is where mankind goes wrong. If only we had chosen numbers instead of words. It's numbers that you can count on. Words just take us to the ends of sentences.
