Poor David's Empty Set Almanack

Some Problems Aren't Solved, Only Outgrown

Today’s entry is for problem-solvers everywhere. Those beset by difficult or complex challenges, awake with them in wee hours and in such a state that even reading Poor David’s Almanack cannot bring peaceful slumber.

Whether the problem is metaphysical or closer to the surface, one need not turn to the drink or the hallucinogenics for relief. Our strategeries here at The Almanack are 100% organic, gluten-free and, while possibly addictive, will enlighten without medical treatment.

Philosophers, theologians and even poets have had all sorts of fun with existential ( word soon to be retired due to scurrilous overuse ) questions about the meaning of life and what constitutes a good one. Modern sorcerers, such as therapists and influencers, treat the more prosaic symptoms: what if my friend ghosts me or my boss belittles me?

Today, though, we step away from these prescriptions and into the natural world: the natural world of mathematics. Regular readers know that I like to look in mathematics for analogous hints to answers for difficult questions, large or small. Mathematics, because it explains the natural order of things, has a certain beauty to me, and of course, we are all familiar with math problems, from the first grade on.

There are three kinds of math problems:

1. Those with infinite solutions, for example……4x+12=2x+12+2x

Interesting perhaps, but of no help to the mind. All answers work.

2. Those with singular solutions, for example….y = 693.8597- 68.7672 cosh(0.0100333x)

This one is sometimes beautiful ( it is the equation describing the gorgeous Gateway Arch in Saint Louis ), but very….specific.

Answers that are highly specific lead us away from the diversity of human thought and temperament.

3. Those with no solution, for example…..5x+7=3x+4+2x

Now here we have something quite interesting to work with, when it comes to major problems in life! There is no value of x that satisfies this equation; the outcome in this case is 7=4. Nonsense, or contradictory if you prefer.

Problems that have no answers or contradictory conclusions hold great promise, for contradiction is one constant in life.

Carl Jung the psychiatrist was on to something in 1938 when he wrote that … “all the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble…. They can never be solved, but only outgrown…”

OUTGROWN?

As usual with Dr. Jung, an odd choice of words to the modern ear, as if we could simply ignore our troubles and outgrow them like baby teeth. But his claim was that when a perplexing problem appears, with no solution available to the rational mind, a retreat from the exigency allows a wider view to take hold, reducing the urgency of the initial challenge.

Strangely, the idea of shedding a problem that has no immediate solution occurs in nature. When the mind is stuck, perhaps it is a signal to grow, and back to Rabbi Abraham Twerski’s Lobster we return.

This stimulus for growth is discomfort. The solution is to outgrow the problem.

Which is quite often the solution we come to with those 3am troubles. In most of life’s most serious questions, better sometimes to accept the contradiction of not having an answer and to let ourselves grow.

Bob Kipp’s advice to his son was to “ride the waves” in times of turmoil. Dad used this formulation with some regularity, suggesting that allowing the choppy water to carry you, rather than fighting it, was a better success strategy. Dad would be 93 now and his voice is as strong as ever. He didn’t know it, but he had the wisdom of timeless mathematics, analytical psychology and the lobster on his side.

May your problems have no direct answer, may you embrace that contradiction and allow it to be a signal for growth.