Math is not art

Staying on Top (a free supplement to the Strategy Toolkit)

For you, dear readers, from the thoughtful author, Jose Saramago, in his lovely parable “The Tale of the Unknown Island”, on the beauty of what it means to be human.

For math is not art…

“We could live here, and I could get work cleaning the boats that come into port, and you, And I, You must have some skill, a craft, a profession, as they call it nowadays, I have, did have, will have if necessary, but I want to find the unknown island, I want to find out who I am when I’m there on that island, Don’t you know, If you don’t step outside yourself, you’ll never discover who you are, The king’s philosopher, when he had nothing to do, would come and sit beside me and watch me darning the pages’ socks, and sometimes he would start philosophising, he used to say that each man is an island, but since that had nothing to do with me, being a woman, I paid no attention to him, what do you think, That you have to leave the island in order to see the island, that we can’t see ourselves unless we become free of ourselves, Unless we escape from ourselves, you mean, No, that’s not the same thing.

“The blaze in the sky was dying down, the waters grew suddenly purple, now not even the cleaning woman could doubt that the sea really is dark, at least at certain times of the day…”