How Are You? I Breathe
I used to meet him in front of the elevator. A few words and a kind smile. It was Mr. Long.
I was a bit more than a child.
I remember that I used to meet him when I was back home from school, in the afternoon. It was a sort of daily ritual.
Mr. Long was very tall and thin. I was so young, and he was so old. We had nothing in common but that ritual.
I usually came in front of the elevator and waited for it. It was the time when Mr. Long was returning from his afternoon walk, slowly getting closer to the elevator. He always greeted me with a wave of his hand and asked:
Hi! How are you doing?
My usual response:
Good afternoon. As usual. What about you?
Mr. Long used to bring into the conversation the light of his wisdom by saying his magic sentence:
I breathe.
At the time, I could not get the deep meaning of these two simple words. Nevertheless, I was able to absorb the feeling that they suggested. It was peace.
Once we got into the elevator, our ride together was very short, as he lived on the first floor. Even if we had enjoyed talking to each other, there was not enough time. We were certainly not going to talk about trivial things, nothing less than the meaning of life, but serious things need time.
Silence, then.
First floor.
As usual, kindly smiling, he said:
Bye.
As usual, smiling too, I answered:
Good afternoon.
Until the day Mr. Long stopped coming home at the same time as me.
I did not notice his absence since day one. I was a teenager, and Mr. Long was not a relevant thought in my mind. Nevertheless, he would have become relevant enough to make me write this memoir.
I felt like the rainbow had lost some colors when I knew that Mr. Long had passed away. It was a few weeks after meeting him for the last time. He never came to my mind in all that time until my mother told me:
You know, Mr. Long died.
Mr. Long was a silent part of my world. His death was not an option that I had considered. I felt bitter.
I took a long breath and asked:
How?
My mother took to telling:
It happened near home, while he was walking as usual. He was alone when a passerby noticed him. He was lying motionless on the ground with a slight smile. To no avail was the arrival of the ambulance. It was a fulminating heart attack. Thus Mr. Long passed away. Do you remember him?
You know, adolescence does not like transparency, so my answer was:
I can hardly remember his face. I have to study. See you for dinner.
I fled to my room, and my first decision was to adopt the I breathe answer. It was a way to make Mr. Long still live, even being dead.
I felt like the rainbow lost some colors when I knew that Mr. Long had passed away.
Would Mr. Long have appreciated it? Silly question, since Mr. Long was dead. The meaningful questions were:
What was he for me? Now that he had gone, what will happen?
I did not know the answers for a while.
In his youth, Mr. Long was a mathematician. He tried to solve some relevant mathematical problems of that period, but then he gave up. Teaching mathematics became his only joy.
Mr. Long tried to compete for glory and failed. From a competitive standpoint, he was a loser. Nevertheless, the day he realized that he was competing for a secondary award — the glory — he also understood which was the primary prize.
The peace of mind.
Solving a problem is valuable, but it is just a possible step. The journey is something much more complex because it has a destination.
At the beginning of 1930, the question that changed the life of Mr. Long was:
What if we could demonstrate the solution to all the mathematical problems?
One year later, Gödel showed up that it would never be possible.
Mr. Long knew about the Gödel’s theorems some times later. Meanwhile, he realized that a mathematical problem is a story, while the solution is the end of the story. He was scared of a world with no more stories to complete and with no more unsolved problems; what would such a world be?
Gödel demonstrated that this kind of world does not exist. Instead, Mr. Long did not want such a world, even if it was possible!
Mr. Long welcomed the problems as the fabric on which to weave serenity. He learned to breathe the problems.
The widow of Mr. Long told me all that.
Eventually, I met her too in front of the elevator. I offered my condolences and told her that I was a friend of Mr. Long. She stared surprised at me. After a while, she kindly smiled and invited me for tea with her. That is how I knew about the youth of Mr. Long.
She had the same way of smiling.
When it comes to knowing the past life of a person, it happens something similar to unveiling a blurred image that you did not notice to be blurred. Out of the blue, many things connect, and you understand.
When I listened to the widow of Mr. Long, I saw — I saw in my mind — the answers I did not have when my mother told me he had passed away.
Nowadays I am as old as Mr. Long was old when I started meeting him in front of the elevator. Do you remember the questions that his death raised inside me?
What was he for me? Now that he has gone, what will happen?
Eventually, the answers came to me.
By meeting Mr. Long, I met my future. He was the blurred mirror that showed what I would become.
When you breathe, you sequentially and uninterruptedly inhale and exhale. What if an exhalation no longer follows an inhalation?
What if we could demonstrate the solution to all the mathematical problems?
It would be the worst end possible, as it would be the end of mathematics if we could demonstrate the solution for each problem.
And that applies to all challenges of life. We would love to experience zero challenges, but it would be like inhaling without exhaling and vice versa. It would be the worst end possible. No matter if we accept it or not.
Each time Mr. Long answered I breathe, he remembered the swing of the sweetness and bitterness in life. He was saying that he accepted it, like observing that the rain is wet.
By giving up on winning the race for the solutions to some relevant mathematical problems, Mr. Long welcomed the problems as the fabric on which to weave serenity. He learned to breathe the problems thanks to them.
That is why he decided to teach mathematics. It was how Mr. Long celebrated the problems by telling them with a kind smile.
And the same I have done all along with my life.
Thanks, Mr. Long.
