Good morning,

Kind of an abstract theme this morning, I hope you enjoy it. It’s about the bracing moment when you see a situation clearly for the first time.

You might have seen that Maryam Mirzakhani, leading female mathematician, died recently. She was the only woman ever to have won the Fields Medal, which almost all news outlets describe as “the Nobel Prize of maths”. The Fields Medal is much harder to win than a Nobel Prize, though! It’s awarded once every four years and only to people under 40. Back to Maryam Mirzakhani, I love this quotation about how she conceptualised and worked through problems until she had the clarity she was looking for:

The point, she said, was not to write down all the details, but to stay connected with the problem. She also likened mathematical inquiry to being lost in a forest, gathering knowledge to come up with some new tricks, until you suddenly reach a hilltop and “see everything clearly”.

https://www.economist.com/news/obituary/21725270-worlds-leading-female-mathematician-was-40-obituary-maryam-mirzakhani-died-july-14th

Similarly, the moment of clarity or revelation in this poem by Izumi Shikibu is a delight:

It seemed the plum trees

were already in bloom

but when I picked a branch

what fell—so much like flowers—

was snow.

SOME FACTS about Izumi Shikibu if you want them! She was a court poet in medieval Japan, and one of the Thirty Six Immortals Of Poetry. The internet is pretty well stocked with her poems, so you can have a nice Friday morning google of her works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izumi_Shikibu

Finally, here is a bonus Izumi Shikibu poem. It’s the most emo thing I have ever read, and I say this as someone who recently sang I’m Not Okay (I Promise) thrice at karaoke. I love it, obviously:

Although the wind

blows terribly here,

the moonlight also leaks

between the roof planks

of this ruined house.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48700/although-the-wind-

Have a great Friday,

Alex x.