The
first time I ever made Aline laugh with something of my own was when we were
walking from the college library to the bus stop – we had gone there to study,
the first opportunity I had to get closer to her.
It was a
stary night. She took a donut from her purse, asked if I wanted a bite – I said
no thanks – and she confessed that she probably shouldn’t be eating that.
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I guess I’m a little over my weight –
she said.
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That’s physically impossible – said
I, with my smartest face.
She laughed
like a flower, and after a while, asked:
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Are you a scientist, then?
The door then
opened in my mind for all possibilities. Yes, I was feeling hesitant about
revealing something of myself. But I hadn’t had too much success in starting a conversation
when we were in the library, and it seemed better than fifteen minutes of
awkward silence anyway.
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In fact – I answered – I have a
brother, one year older, and we always discuss all kinds of crazy things.
I was looking
at the paving stones in the walkway.
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Like what? – she asked.
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Well, for instance, we have some
theories about the numbers…
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Complex stuff?
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Not really. Want to hear some of it?
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Well, yeah.
And this is
the “theory” that I explained to Aline as we were walking in that stary night:
It is about
the numbers from one to five. Well, One is God, but God doesn’t want to be
alone. Two is for computers, and Three is for life.
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Wait – she interrupted – This is
weird. Two for computers like in that, how they say it, binary code?
She was
right. The binary code, the language of just Zeros and Ones that computers use
to write down information and make operations with it, totally fits what I was
thinking about.
But the simplest
way of thinking about it, is to think of day and night. In the number One,
there exists something in the Universe, instead of nothing. In number Two, we
have two different opposites. Day and night.
And the
number Three is for life. Putting the contradiction to some mean. Think of the
number Two as the number of the physical World, in the sense of planets,
particles, billiard balls, fire. It’s an ever expanding and dividing Universe.
Like a simple
computer operation. All numbers are represented by a sequence of Zeros and
Ones. And adding them generates a bigger number, a longer sequence of Zeros and
Ones.
So we can
imagine this: after adding the two numbers, we have these two numbers and the
result of their sum. Now we have a new result, a fourth number. Then we add the
four and get a fifth, then we add the five and so on…
It seems like
an interesting illustration of how the universe of Physics works. We can
imagine the One as Positive and the Zero as Negative – then these two forces go
interacting with each other, generating more and more little Ones and little
Zeroes, a set of Ones and Zeros that get each time longer and more complex.
Like Positive
and Negative forces interacting and dividing things. Dividing planets into
smaller ones, and etc. Dividing and expanding.
Then
something happens between the numbers Two and Three. Things start to gather for
some reasons, new substances form, gases, water, all paving the way to Life,
that is when the opposites start to really work together for a goal. Like all
those chemical reactions in our body. Or, simply, day and night. Feeding during
the day, sleeping during the night. Or the contrary, but marrying day and night
for a common goal. The third element, that points ahead.
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I like it – said her – And the number
four?
The Four, I explained, is the Human Being. Life with self-consciousness.
You have Three, a living being putting contraries to the same direction. The we
have Four, a living being that is aware of himself, that he is an individual,
that he is unique. Three plus One.
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Does it have to do with God? – she
asked – Life plus God?
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It totally does – said I.
Because if God can be considered the Original “I”, then Three plus One,
Life plus self-consciousness, Life Plus “I”, is Life plus God.
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Cool. And the number Five?
Five would be the something more each of must find for ourselves.
Because a person can know that he is an individual, know that there is a higher
Intelligence or Order above, and still go wrong, still get lost. Five is the
little extra thing we must find.
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An extra finger – she smiled.
Think of it this way: The psychologist – I think it was them – realized
something about how our brain processes data in chunks. Like, when you see two
things, you don’t need to count – one, two – no, you just immediately see two
things and know it’s two. The same thing with groups of three our four. You
don’t need to count, you see immediately that it is three or four. But five is
the first number that people – or at least, the vast majority – have to somehow
count. You see a chunk of four and then add that extra one, and know it’s five.
Like whenever we see something in life, we must try to at least see a
little something more, go at least a little further from what our brain is
predisposed to see. In the number Four, we already know we are an individual,
and there is God. But Five remembers us that we never know all.
Could be a little something more creative in the work, could be a
situation that you saw many times before and think you know everything about,
but there is always something a little different.
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Wow – she said – I like it. Do you
think that’s why we have five fingers?
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Well, I don’t know, it’s just
something I like to think when I look at my hand.
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Well – she said – Then you should
make a little song: this little finger, reminds me of this, this little finger,
reminds of that…
Then it was my time to laugh.
And so she kissed me in the cheek and got the bus.
