The Awakening
Cambridge University, 1947
This atmosphere was created by a barely audible murmur of people’s conversations, the sound of the wooden furniture’ legs squeaking every time people shifted in their seats. Among them was John Nash he was young mathematics graduate student, rather profound and tense. He was unlike any other and was rather reserved, distant, but there was no denying that he was a genius. He was unique in his thinking process that was hard for the opponents to understand; a maze of arithmetic, theories, and formulae.
In every class, people who have full authority in the classroom are the teachers or professors, thus, as the professor walked into the classroom, all the students became mute. But it seemed that Nash did not even hear them; his mind was wandering in the maze of abstractions that tirelessly created a huge number of doubts in his head which seemed to be a non solvable riddle.
On the first day of the class the professor excitedly told the students: ‘Today we are going to talk about game theory’ and then wrote it formally on the blackboard. “A field that certainly has importance to many areas from economics to biology as well as to warfare. ”
At this Nash’s ears came to full attention. Game theory was something that had intrigued him—an idea that based on certain principles, could be actualized in practice, where parameters are key and thinking is rational.
Towards the end of the lecture Nash’s mind started to form patterns that other people would not be able to discern; everything around him disappeared and he saw only the patterns of mathematics. He angrily wrote down all that came to his mind, his hand racing across the paper to keep up with what was going through his mind.
The other students clustered themselves in groups and engaged in matters arising from the day’s lecture while Nash stayed put at his desk, deep in a trance. He failed to notice the glances and murmurs from people that trailed behind him. Those, who were unlucky to know him, used to describe him as a weirdo, a shy person with no friends. But Nash didn’t care. He was in search of something that would be bigger than him, an idea that would revolutionize the world.
Only when the members of the audience began to leave, Nash got up, his thoughts continue to race. Leaving the door of the lecture, he nearly bumped into a young woman whom he realized was waiting for her turn to get into the hall.
“Oh! I did not see you there,” she said smiling at me and moved back a few steps. He quickly backed up and said, “I didn’t mean to startle you. ”
Nash blinked, momentarily disoriented. The woman could be easily noticed by people, she had big and bright eyes, and the energy that she had filled the darkness of the corridor.
Nash was stumbling over his words – the image of someone who lacked social skills to say the least. … It was his turn to steer the conversation and yet he had not noticed me, “Sorry, I did not see you there. ”
She laughed, she giggled in fact, and Nash felt as though the fog in his head was lifted hearing the sound. “Hi, My name is Alicia. I have often noticed you moving around campus. Are you the mathematics wizard students have always been raving about?”
This surprised Nash who shifted in his seat uncomfortable with people focusing on him. He looked away shyly and said, “I’m just a student do you know that?” The had an almost apologetic tone to it.
“A very modest one, I see.” That was, if I remember correctly, how Alicia reciprocated Gatsby’s initial welcome. “Do you ever have a break from all that analysis of everything? You seem like you could use some air. ”
Nash was about to say no, but the glint and the sincerity in her eyes stopped him. “Perhaps I might like a walk,” he said, almost against his will.
As they have walked through one of the greens of the university, Alicia was in a great mood to engage the man in cheerful conversation about his academic pursuits, hobbies, and everyday life experience at the university. Nash discovered himself hearing—or rather, listening—to something or someone, a thing he rarely had been doing of late. This is meant literally, where it seemed to him that Linda’s arrival somehow imposed a certain order in the turmoil within him.
They got to the little bench before the huge oak tree and dropped onto it. There was pin-drop silence for some time, with only the sound of leaves of trees swaying in the wind.
“You know,” Alicia said, turning to Nash, “I’ve always envied such people, the ones who can look at the world in a way others cannot. But I suppose it must be quite lonely to be stuck inside your head like that. ”
Nash stared at her, his anxiety struck by what she said—that she didn’t consider that it would make a difference. “It is,” he agreed with a soft voice. “But I don’t know how to be any other way.” Often, we hear this statement or something similar to it to that effect from someone.
Alicia smiled gently. “Perhaps the fact is that you do not need to be anything; you just need someone to listen and empathise. ”
Nash relaxed, and something inside him changed for the better when they stayed side by side while watching the sun go down. For the first time, he felt that there could be something else in life other than studying. May be there was beauty in the relationships that are established between individuals and how they help to make even the geniuses sane.
But with those thoughts in his mind, Nash saw the beauty in Alicia, and his thoughts were out of the box, thinking that he may have met a woman who could liberate the real Nash within him.
Post a Comment