0. Zeno’s paradox:

a runner will never reach the stationary goal line on a straight racetrack. The reason is that the runner must first reach half the distance to the goal, but when there he must still cross half the remaining distance to the goal, […] and so on. If the goal is one meter away, the runner must cover a distance of 1/2 meter, then 1/4 meter, then 1/8 meter, and so on ad infinitum.

I imagine Zeno while folding my paper in half. In my fictional contemporary version, he is a man sitting on a couch. Zeno is zoning out, staring at the door. After another busy day of paradoxes at work, he wonders; “Can one ever get to the door?” The dead philosopher is tired, but his food is finally here. He gets up and opens the door.

Let's consider math for what it is: a language, with all the historical, social, mortal, embodied ramifications any language holds.

1. It’s a game. A daily ritual. I’m around 5yrs old walking with my mother who is a math teacher. We make it to an intersection. “What’s the best route?” The shortest path between any two point is the straight line connecting them. The Donkey Theorem.

Hold any two points on the map, let the paper drape, then fold. Here’s your answer.

The street signs disapprove.

2. “There are countable infinities (think distance), and uncountable infinities (think between two points).” The tech bro with his Math PhD announces in a late-night gathering. He casually returns to dj-ing.

I keep folding my paper, there are infinite choreographies in this one sheet. My hands are enjoying their flirtation with paper. I am counting. This man’s axioms would disagree.

The next day he sends me a Wikipedia page for the 19th century German mathematician, Georg Cantor. I find a devout Lutheran claiming infinity to be Christian.

3. My eyes long for the open horizon that is the ocean. I think of Edouard Glissant and wonder with him. Is staring at this absence, an act of seeing, a remembering, or a plea to imagine?

Abstraction floats between two radically opposing forces. I think of my passport number, I remember holding your hand.

4. Current thoughts:

• Circles are just friction

• Symmetry as child play

• And infinity, because eyes need to rest.