Last week, I read the huge discovery in the news with mixed feelings...the "bounded gaps" conjecture concerning prime numbers was finally proven...as I was reading about it, I found myself thinking "where is the value in mathematically proving something everyone already knows to be true?"...
This heretical viewpoint...the one that arises from my conscious awareness...is a considerable shift from that held by my younger self...the student who studied mathematics voraciously...who loved creating proofs...who thought that if it couldn't be proven mathematically then it wouldn't have truth or meaning or value until it could...
I don't know whether my shift in viewpoint is a function of age, one of understanding or an outgrowth of my faith in my own intuition...and now I know that there is no proof that will sway my belief in an idea or thing unless I allow it to do so...conversely, I can choose to believe in anything I want, requiring no outside verification whatsoever...
I have come to understand that each of us does this...I have realized that conviction is only believing in a lot of evidence we select for the sole purpose of reinforcing our underlying beliefs...that life and the universe are more mutable than I ever imagined...and that anything I give my attention to immediately becomes more real...
Sister Corita Kent, 1966, "I love you", from my personal collection...