spend my days locked in a haze

on weekends i bury myself in mathematics, cranking out calculations for a problem my coworker is not sure we can actually solve. on weekdays i wake up around 5am to use the bathroom, and then instead of going back to bed i pack my bags and walk over to the bus stop. i have been blistering lately, laser-focused, heading out so early the sun blinds me throughout my commute

get to the office hours before anyone else and somehow still manage to leave late. volunteer for oncall because nobody wanted to do it this week. i figure if i’m going to be working this much anyway i might as well monitor the gpus while everyone is away, right? anyway, oncall is a million little fires, many of which i do not know how to put out, but sometimes i catch a break in between the flames and glance at my scratch paper and scribble down a few more lines

there are some kinds of math, like geometry and combinatorics, that i can only do well when i am at peace. there are other kinds of math, like analysis, that i am best at when i am absolutely incensed. it goes without saying that this is the latter kind of math

two weeks ago i wrote that i have been on a search for something to build temples and immolate myself for - am i happy now, running on fumes and fury? is this what i meant? how long will i go on like this for?

the truth is that all this is a bit of a distraction. lately i have been feeling quite sad for reasons which are a little silly and which i cannot elaborate on here. instead i’ll leave you with this poem by a friend:

Had I told you the sweetest words, would you have changed your mind?
The answer, of course, is no. You would have cut my heart length-wise with a sword made of clouds, and ground it into dust with a mortar and pestle of words alone.
And, as you would have done
—you did.

my heart has been cut into pieces and ground into dust in the most tender way possible

i’ve been thinking about how sometimes pain makes people bitter and sometimes it makes them kinder. i am not sure where the difference is - my best guess is it has to do with how much you blame other people for your problems? but anyway i feel like i am becoming a better person, and so after spending years reacting allergically to pain i think this isn’t so bad. there are coworkers i have been unfair to and i am choosing to be gentler now; there are friendships i have neglected and i am choosing to tend to them now; there is work that i have slacked off on and i am choosing to reimmerse myself in it now. if these are my symptoms then i figure there are worse ailments than being in pain. i choose to linger in it even if i am half-dead. i think everything will be ok