Strange Loops

Benjamin and I could not have been any more different. He was a genius, and I was, well, an idiot. But he was the first friend who encouraged me to be a writer.

We met in high school. He’d leave early every day to go study advanced mathematics at a local college, and on a good day, my GPA was about 1.5. But I was street smart.

After telling him I wrote poetry, every week he would ask for whatever I had written, and in return, he would explain his favorite math concepts to me, like when he became obsessed with Douglas Hofstadter’s works on recursive loops.

“Even mathematics disproves itself,” he would say. Before I could process that, he’d add, “Even consciousness cancels itself out. The universe itself is a strange loop.”

“So, like, I loop, you loop, then we unloop each other?”

He’d look at me with sympathy, but I’d never let on that I did not understand. Soon, he’d give my poetry his honest feedback.

“The birds are realistic,” he said, nodding, “And the sun, appropriately yellow.”

The years progressed. He pursued more advanced mathematical concepts, and my poetry evolved. The middle ground became ever more elusive.

“Reality obviously exists,” I’d say, “I know because I am hungry.”

“Light doesn’t whisper,” he’d reproach me, “Why are the pigeons speaking English?”

I realize now that both of us were right and wrong, but deep down, I knew he was seeing things I never could.

Soon, I went to college to study literature, and he went to an Ivy League school to study math. We tried to keep in touch, but our conversations became irreconcilable.

“Let the pigeons speak!” I’d say in frustration.

And he’d say, equally frustrated, “Stop saying you are hungry!”

Years later, my poetry improved, and I even understood some of his ideas, but by then, we had long fallen out of contact.

Last I heard, he solved the secret to the universe in an arcane mathematical formula. Rumor has it, shortly after, he was busted for producing high-grade meth out of a garage in Orlando.

Now there’s a man I should have gone into business with. He was smart enough to produce something I could actually sell, and I could have used my street smarts to keep him out of trouble.