Thin Veneer
I had a disturbing dream last night. It was the kind of dream which would worry me should I be of the mindset susceptible to superstitious nonsense. The parts I can remember went thusly:
For the bulk of my dream, I dreamed of doing my trigonometry homework assignments. I slept uneasily, as whenever I have a dream of this sort, my eyes feel dry and my mind simply will not rest.
After a long period of calculation, I found myself in a maze of short adobe walls sporadically lined with short, boxy hedges – a maze surprisingly easy to navigate. Not too far ahead, my mom stood stationary a little off the center of the path, engaging in conversation with somebody whom was not in my field of vision.
Immediately, I was compelled to remove my wedding ring from my left middle finger (where it is worn because I was much bigger when Ro and I were married) and sink my teeth into it. Once bit, the ring easily snapped into two pieces, yet held together by some sort of unseen hinge. I was alarmed at what I had just done and intuitively peered at whomever my mother was speaking with. Roman and she had just ended their conversation as I approached. “Look, Ro. Look what happened to the ring you gave to me,” I sobbed. Roman glanced at it for no more than a second and reassured me, “Don’t worry. We’ll buy you a new one; one that fits.” Then he abruptly turned and proceeded towards a proper hedge maze off in the distance.
I was alone with my broken ring; I examined it. I noticed that the break was not clean and that a sliver of white gold hung over the edge of the break, almost as if the ring had its own hangnail. Upon closer inspection, it was revealed to be a thin, silvery veneer. I tried a few times to catch the shred between my fingernails, and upon succeeding, I pulled easily unraveling the lustrous coating in spirals all the way around around all surfaces of the circumference of the loop. Just posterior to the shiny surface lay a dull, cardboard-color-and-texture backing. I looked to the band itself; the substance of my ring seemed to be entirely comprised of twisted, thin wood pulp. Acting on yet another compulsion, I placed the remainder of the ring under a running tap where it dissolved. I woke up.
The dream bothered me enough to tell Roman about it and to write this post. Though I don’t think dreams can do silly things like foretell future events, it still feels a bit bothersome. I’m chocking it up to all the trig I’ve been doing lately, nearly all of which at this point in the semester involve segmenting circles and spirals.
On the bright side, the dream made me want to finish all my math homework, which I’ve spent the bulk of today doing. I’m finding that I love mathematics more and more as I progress. Firmly rooted in the natural world, I used to become quite depressed with our finite world. For the longest time, I was convinced that the only things that matter are things which last forever. A great number of mathematicians and philosophers who have studied mathematical existence at length concur that numbers have a permanence outside our minds and cultures. Funny how I used to think that that beautiful something eternal was going to be something plain and simple. What deep beauty could possibly exist without empirical complexity and marvel?