We have good days, we have bad days. Then we have days where we are in shock: good or bad, we can't believe that they're happening to us. I bet that's what it's like when you win the lottery, or if you're told your whole family died in a plane wreck. I just had one of those days, just recently — not the bad kind, thank God, one of the good ones! I heard somewhere that Albert Einstein felt the Theory of Relatively before he thought the whole thing out, that when he was on a train, he felt violently ill; thereupon, that theory came processing through his brain. So, after hearing this, I longed for that type of sickness, that kind of wonderful nausea (love, I think, is also one of those wonderful nauseas). And Wednesday, I had it: on a train, just like Albert, I felt just sick as I thought on a problem, and I conceived of something strange and fantastic.
I don't think I'll go on with the exact details of what came over me. Not only do I think I'll bore you, but there's quite a bit of background material that I would have to cover before I told you what I thought of. It has to do with the mathematical field of topology, if you must know something about it, and how it relates to pattern recognition in an artificially intelligent system. But anyway, the rest of the day, I was in utter shock. Had I really found what I'd been looking for, after these years of searching in vain? Something in me was sure of it, but I couldn't figure out what part, and it didn't tell me why. Of course, there is also another part of me that yet doubts, but that, I think, is habit — I've been wrong so many times before. But as it holds, I live in a brave new world: there is much work to be done, now that I have the seed planted: it is like farming a vine whose fruits you have never tasted before. Wish me luck.
me?!
2:16pm saturday, 10th may
Congratulations are in order,and I wish you the best of luck!!
me?!