Imaginary numbers

I love math. I really do, it is cool.  Saying that you love math, is not cool the last time I checked. Of course, I would have to call or text one of my sons to ask them.  There is one and only one reason that I wish I was younger than I am- not to go back in life or relive my life, rather that I could have been born, a little later than I was.  Nineteen seventy-eight, even five more years, or ten. Fifteen at the most.

Sidenote: 1978, it’s just harder for me to type numbers, it always has been (really, they’re further away, taught later, and more prone to error,) for me.  In my incident, my left arm stopped working for a week or two until I learned it again, but my hand never stopped. I could use my thumb and forefingers, nothing else. After a week or two later could rotate my lower arm and it’s progressed from there. Typing has been part of my PT since I could use my right arm to reach over, lift my left arm and place it on the keyboard. And hold it still long enough, then wait for a nurse to find me tape, then figure out how to tape my forearm to the table as my elbow and shoulder could not keep it there.

I never thought of doing it and at some point, I thought other humans might, yet being that I was taught, trained… no, I was disciplined to type with two hands, I didn’t want another way.

I had been disciplined to type against my will by beautiful humans with trained angels encumbered by prayer into old-fashioned manual typewriters. Angels or Demons, call them what you like. Each is a unique species, unknown until known individually by you because the generic words, whichever one you use, are meaningless to describe whatever the creature could entail. I know basically nothing about them at all.

I’ve met some though, so let us talk about a nice one. The Typewriter Angel.  See, some angels don’t come across so nicely when you first meet them. Clearly, angels do not exist in the real world. So, we are going to get imaginary here. Wikipedia allowed being repeated on their site, from a source it found credible that “Historians have estimated that some form of the typewriter was invented 52 times as thinkers tried to come up with a workable design.”

Being imaginary, angels have a hard time participating in the real world, especially when not well practiced. Like a genie in a bottle, the first few moments (to them,) or decades, centuries, or eons to us, can be pretty chaotic as they stretch out their being and ah.. not to be circular.. learn where to place their fingers on the keys of our real world.

Angels, or demons if you prefer (there almost needs to be another word here.. as bloods and crypts are to gang members,) are actually pretty weak and sometimes even lazy beings (we humans aren’t completely unique.) Being there are not many here in the real world and the best that I know and might even be right about, they can only get here if a human (or higher power) brings them here with the powers that we possess. We all can control these beings.

See movies like Poltergeist or even the holy rollers you might know, are funny and show the difference between the real world and “based on” the real world.. is it true, does it have some truth? I don’t know, it’s a movie designed to sell tickets in theaters (with a Projector.) I’m not talking about anything like that and I want to make that clear before anyone just stops reading.  The movies show “real demons”, that don’t exist, that is not real, it’s “based” on something to sell movies.. just a sales pitch. They don’t exist, they are not real.

Imaginary angels and demons do exist. They are not real, they are just imaginary little fricken ankle-biter dogs (except not dogs, even dogs have a family) dozens of them- well, based on behavior. See, every demon you think you know, you have to meet at least four times first, that’s one reason, it’s the human number. The minimum number of times a human needs to meet another being, in order to know it. Of course, that’s if you learn well enough to separate the data, it will diverge into these four states. You must see all four, and then know that they are one. In this way, knowing an Angel is similar to knowing God. To know God, you must see all three persons (each in your two states), and then know that they are all one.

I can’t try to explain God right now, ah obviously.. that is the tangent ad infinitum for me. Angels though- and I don’t know how the math works here, but one person in four states is easy to handle than three persons in one being.  So lets do it..  it’s all about behavior, yours and the angels, now good and bad would be the easy way to explain it and we’ll start there and soon you’ll see four boxes, one black and one white, two gray. Now, do it again with sixteen boxes and that I think is as far as necessary to really know them well.  Back to four.

You move towards good, the angel moves towards:  You’ve found the white box, learn to play and have fun with the angel.

You move toward good, the demon moves away: Be careful and cautious, don’t let them bring you down.

You move away from good, the angel moves toward: This time, by now… I really hope you’ve learned to see the imaginary demons, this one could be rescuing you.

You move away from good, the demon moves away: Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor.

Being sometimes lazy, it takes human prayer, thoughts, and good vibes to invoke them into this real world. It takes human beings often working together in large groups. We all have the power to take the imaginary into and out of this world– if we’ve learned to harness, or even believe we have that power. Of course, for the more powerful angels or demons (no they are not all the same, the ankle biters are the big ones, and the ‘small’ ones could be an ant. As always, it is their numbers you need to worry about.)

Again, disclaimer, and I apologize- this isn’t religious talk- there are no chants to invoke demons or angles. It’s more thought than prayer, yet with a bit of meditation too. You have to know you can control the demon. Then you tell it what to do. Then the demon does it. However, getting to know a demon (or angel) completely enough to know and control it, before it exists in the real world is very rare and difficult. We celebrate these people, in this case, fifty-two people around the world who worked for decades, sharing notes, learning about the creature, and racing to be the first to announce the discovery of its existence.

The final credit went to Christopher Latham Sholes, though if you know it as well as I do, you know it speaks with an Italian accent. Like all persons, you can build a relationship (just be careful of which square you’re in.)

So how do I know the Typewriter person? Not a human person, the angel/demon typewriter being that has a personality, that person, the personality of a Typewriter.  (also, final notes, as I’m trying to speed this up, I don’t need to spend all day writing this..) We have power over them and can banish them from the real world- our real world, but we cannot kill them.  I can pick up and destroy my Typewriter (fear not Macbook) and it would be gone from my home… but not yours. I met them in 7th grade with the letter a.

a a a a a   a a a a a   a a a a a

My pinky hurt. That is the first thing I knew about the typewriter demon and I understood, it was there to hurt me. I was not alone in the rebellion growing in the room, most all the humans agreed in our revolt. Yet, the beautiful human with the power in the room disciplined us.

a ; a ; a ;   a ; a ; a ;   a ; a ; a ;

Which square was I in? This demon and I did not get along, it made me Angry. Smile, say cheese you cute little angry demon, I’m gonna talk about you for a second.  See most demons, or angels can only come into the real world into objects, the strong ones just float about.  Some though, can come inside of you if you want them to or just let them when your eyes are closed.  Thank God not all of them, we might never survive.  These are some of the beefier ankle bitters. They have been in the real world for a long time and know exactly where our human buttons are:

Anger, Murder, Drugs, Theft, Sexy, Lies, and Gossip.. just a few of the bigger mean crowds I’ve heard of. Sometimes and maybe in a lot of different ways, one or two of them seem to get your number.  Angry Demon has mine.  That used to piss me off until I learned how to discipline it. See that Angry Demon can really stir me up- it has been in this real world so much longer than myself.

Have I mentioned how lonely demons are? To start the process of training your demon first you need to see it and admit that it is an imaginary demon. It’s not real, but it is trying to get your attention- and you should give it some, to train it. Teach it how to behave and you give it a little more attention, once trained well, you’ll probably start calling it an angel.

The other humans moved on to learn new things at the school and I was moved to another school and was forced to type all the way through 8th grade too. Then high school, with another new school and required typing course… and then a career working on keyboards. I know the Typewriter Angel well. Back in school, I learned about the Math Angel too (oh quiet, it’s not a demon) and I hated, hated, hated the imaginary numbers. Math was hard enough, now they can just make up imaginary numbers? Worse, those humans could not visualize math to me as I needed. Not cool, not cool at all. I felt the same way about math as I did about typing.

See both of those little demons were living in the dark square of my real world, so the Angry Demon lit up because it had someone to play with. I didn’t know that then. Now though, had I already mastered my Angry Demon then, it would have let me know how to interact better with them.  I can’t get rid of my Angry Demon <I literally just giggled> I’m not sure if I want it to go away, now that I know it.. oh, the ever so rare Angry Angel to be caught and tamed by a human that it almost bested.

He sits in my pocket I guess, almost like a pet mouse. I do have to feed it a bit to keep it with me, just a bit of attention here and there. Asking for advice on the other angels and demons works out well for both of us.  I just have to learn to do the opposite usually. They are jokesters sometimes.. they’ll try to fool you into moving to the wrong square.

My Angry Demon melts to a puddle when I play with the Typewriter Angel, gets choked back, and has to go slow- that is one of the intrinsic attributes of the Typewriter- oh, to slow down the spoken word, absolute on the output. Rectified power, stable, and ready to be applied. Or to draw it out even, for the dramatics or to make a strong point.

My Typewriter Angel has entertained me, comforted me, kept me company, fed me, clothed me, and has been my friend and a major part of my recovery.  So glad that I was disciplined so well so long ago, a strength instilled so deep, a power to move my fingers that not even an impact with the earth could interfere with. Without a keyboard, hundreds of thousands of words would have disappeared from my mind and soul far faster than my ability to capture them with a pen and paper. Would my soul have shrunk in the absence? Is my soul more full for all the words I have written? Is yours?

Discipline your demons, and may God raise up the beautiful humans who invoked, learned, and taught the Typewriter to me.

PS, this was a bit of PT typing with maybe not too much of a story to tell.. yet PT I did, an extra 2000 words today, and numbers to.. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0. Discipline. I will type numbers again without taking my eyes off the screen.. practice. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

PS, since this went in a thousand directions.. the only reason I wish I was born later would be so that I could have watched math videos on Youtube in school.  Then I would be a frikken Einstein right now instead of a Hemmingway. Yep, sorry Typewriter, if I would have watched the 3Blue1Brown when my brain was still young and soft, the world might be a different place today. Pick your Angels people.. train them well and discipline yourself.

Remember, angels and demons are not real, just imaginary creatures.

And imaginary things, do exist.

Time to go.