The second equation

the second equation that fascinated me came through while sitting in calculus in senior year high school… i’ve always loved math until i sat through calculus… after that, it didn’t really make too much sense anymore… except for this one equation…!

there are fancy definitions, but the way i see it is… an integration is a mathematical formula to calculate the area of a blob… something that’s difficult to define… b/c it doesn’t have an easily defined length or width… so, in calculus, it’s usually an area under a curve, or sometimes even an area of unknown dimensions… makes perfect sense, doesn’t it…?!?

and how integration works is essentially dividing up the blob into infinite little known areas, then it sums it up… so, the blob is now a million little squares that we can easily add up and know the total value… easy enough, right…?

when one integrates an x, it becomes x-squared divided by 2… or x2/2…
so, what happens if we replaced x with heart, and integrate heart instead…?
one would get the same answer… heart-squared over two…

the heart is sort of like a blob… there’s no definite dimension to it… who knows how long or how wide or how deep someone’s heart is… i certainly am mystified by my own… but i like the simplicity of this equation… there’s a bit of faith and certainty in its simplicity… so, i’m comforted knowing that if i could integrate my own heart, integrate all the feelings, all the experiences, all the memories, that the heart carries… if i could sum all of life’s impressions upon my heart, i would get an easy to understand answer…

i’d get heart-squared divided by two…

but this is where it got fascinating… yes, this is where mathematically, there’s the proof that we are made to feel something missing… even though i integrated something whole… even though i integrated whole-heart, i got whole-heart-squared divided by two…! the heart itself feels full by its being squared but it is missing its other half…

and so, this is where, if i’m lucky enough to find someone who is also able to integrate her heart, who is able to do the same for her heart as i am able to do for mine, together, both of our heart-squared divided by two, when added together, becomes simply heart-squared…

i’m sure you’ve heard of the lyrics…

adding up the total of a love that’s true
multiply life by the power of two…