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Math, Poetry, and the Calculations of Everyday Life with James Navé · Twice 5 Miles Radio with James Navé

• 0:05
  James Navé: Welcome to Twice Five Miles Radio, fertile ground for conversations worth listening to. I'm your host, James Nave. Today, I'm going solo. I've been thinking this week about a subject that I've always stood at a distance from, mathematics. Now the reason I bring this up is because I've been having a lot of conversations with people about what they know and what they don't know.
• 0:31
  I've come across a lot of people who tell me I just don't know what to think. I just don't have any facts before me. I don't understand anything anymore. I'm super confused about everything that's going on around me. That's legitimate.
• 0:45
  There's a lot of action happening right now in the world and it's understandable that it would confuse you. I can certainly say it confuses me. I don't know sometimes where to turn nor do I know exactly what thought train I want to get on and if I want to even stay on it or not. And yet we all have to make decisions and we make those decisions all the time about what we discuss, what we think about, where we go, who we talk to, who we avoid talking to because maybe somebody you know is a good friend, but you know they talk a lot and you just don't have time to engage in the conversation. Or something as simple as getting up in the morning and making a cup of coffee or a tea.
• 1:29
  You know how long it takes for the water to boil. You know how long it takes for you to pour the water into the cup. You know how long it takes to drink the cup of tea or the cup of coffee. You've done it enough times. It's built into your psychology.
• 1:43
  You don't have to do any calculations. You don't have to do any mathematics. You know pretty much within thirty seconds of how long it'll take you to accomplish this task. Or here's something a little more complicated. I am recording this show at Lake Eden.
• 1:58
  I'm sitting at a desk looking out the window onto the spring that's emerging in the forest. Dogwood trees are in bloom and some of the green leaves have emerged on some of the trees. Some of the trees are also still bare. I hear airplanes overhead. I heard a jet pass by.
• 2:18
  I knew it was a jet because I calculated the sound. I also could calculate the speed of the jet because I could hear the jet slowing down. I'm assuming, can't be 100% sure, the jet's landing at the Asheville Airport. Because I've flown in jets so many times, I have a sense of about how fast that jet is going. Also, I hear a prop plane overhead.
• 2:47
  I've only flown in prop planes a few times, enough to know they go a lot slower than a jet, also enough to know how to calculate the approximate speed of the prop plane as it's flying overhead. I estimate the prop plane is probably flying at about 140 miles an hour. The jet landing at the Asheville Airport or taking off, either way, the speed is probably about the same because it's not at full speed. I suspect the jet is probably flying at about two seventy five miles an hour. Wow, those speeds are not completely accurate.
• 3:25
  I'll bet they're fairly close. I was able to make those calculations within seconds based on what I heard. I'm not the only one who can do this. If you've ever heard an airplane flying overhead, you probably can come to the same conclusion as fast as I did. And on the slower side, as I said, I'm looking out the window onto the hardwoods of Western North Carolina here at Lake Eden and the green has begun to move up the mountains.
• 3:53
  I can't see it move, it's like the clock hand. And yet I can estimate that within a week, the green will be at least 30% more on the trees than it is right now. And by the end of the month, when May rolls around, the trees will be fully covered in green. That's about three and a half weeks, more mathematical calculations done casually without me even thinking about it. This goes on all the time.
• 4:25
  And if you're listening to this show being aired on WPVM FM in Asheville, the April 2026, you can look out your window and see exactly what I'm looking at right now. If you live in Taos and you're listening to the show on KCEIFM Cultural Energy Radio, you can look out your window and you will see something a little different. Spring comes later in Taos. April is the time of the wind. If you're hearing wind right now in Taos, I'll bet you can estimate how fast the wind is blowing just by the sounds it makes when it moves through the trees or when it loops around your house.
• 5:05
  I bet you can also estimate if you're up higher in elevation in snow country, you can estimate how long the snow will last before the sun shining on the Southern Slope melts it. Maybe it'll be 2PM and the sun will be out so long, it'll be warm and the snow will be gone and a little bit of green grass will be underneath leftover from the snow's visit. And that will be a sign of spring. So again, you can make all of these calculations and the point of this, no matter where you are in the world, you do this automatically. You know how long it is until you will start to feel tired.
• 5:45
  You know how long you can last before you take a drink of water. You know how much food you need to eat in order to feel full. And you also know how much you could eat and then call it overeating. So hopefully you stop before you get to that point. Obviously these are the kinds of calculations that we all make every day.
• 6:07
  We do it constantly from the moment we wake up until the moment we fall asleep. This is a natural thing. There's no tension, there's no drama. These are just the things we do. And yet within our decisions, which are all based on these calculations we make, we find ease, we also find tension, and we also find drama because one of the things we tend to do as human beings, we tend to make mistakes.
• 6:33
  We tend to blow it. We tend to miscalculate. Our math isn't always correct, even though we hope it will be. And even though math is fixed, one plus one is two, two plus two is four, four plus four is nine. No, wait, four plus four is eight.
• 6:55
  I tossed the old nine in there because it's a magic number, but it did throw you off a bit. It even threw me off because I'm so used to saying four plus four is eight rather than four plus four is nine, or two times four is eight, the correct answer. Nine is also an answer. It's the incorrect answer. And yet I'm still participating in the mathematics of things, even when I'm getting them wrong.
• 7:19
  The reason I'm bringing this up is because I've always framed my relationship with math around the fact that I thought I wasn't good in math. It's true from an academic mathematical point of view, I failed to learn how to really follow through with math. Yes, I know one plus one equals two and two plus two equals four. If I get into the more complicated mathematical aspects of things and have to write them down, like expressing something with an algebraic equation, I fumble because I just don't know how to do it. So for much of my life, I blamed myself for something that was inaccurate.
• 8:01
  I always thought I was bad in math. What I didn't understand was I was as good at math as anybody else. I could calculate the distances from point A to point B. I knew how long it would take to get to the end of the road and collect the mail and come back to my house, on and on and on it goes. I could calculate the distance I had to drive before I needed to get gas, etcetera.
• 8:26
  What I wasn't able to do way back when, which I didn't learn how to do, I didn't learn how to do mathematics from a more formal point of view. I just didn't understand that in school. I didn't learn it. I was never taught it. So when I moved away from high school and went off to college and took basic algebra, I was completely lost.
• 8:48
  I got an F in the subject and I gave up. I thought I can't do math. That was wrong. The reason I was unable to do college algebra was because I'd never been taught fractions when I was in elementary school. I thought I'd been taught fractions, but I really had not been.
• 9:10
  I had not been taught how to do simple algebraic equations, even though I tried, but because I had lost my traction with fractions way back in the eighth grade or the seventh grade, by the time I arrived at the tenth grade, I didn't have enough background to follow through with the mathematics of high school. I managed to muddle through, maybe I got a D, maybe I got a C, I more or less did the work. I just simply didn't understand the concepts. And as time went on, I would refer back to that lack of understanding as my evidence that I didn't know how to do math and that I wasn't good in it, never occurred to me to pause and think about it from a different perspective. The reason I bring this up and the reason I'm talking about mathematics is because lately I have been thinking about perspectives, how things change, how suddenly an opinion that I've held can shift really quick to another point of view with great ease.
• 10:11
  So here's how my opinion about mathematics shifted. A few years ago, I was leading a workshop in Normandy at Jennifer DeGantt's house, a group of maybe eight of us. We had gathered there. We were there for four days. It was very nice, warm outside.
• 10:26
  We ate outside, enjoyed our evenings, much camaraderie, lots of conversations. A fellow named Maurice was there. Maurice was a British fellow, well educated. He worked as a translator. He would translate French to English, English to French for people, and he traveled a bit around the world.
• 10:44
  Maurice also worked with people around conflict. So he would facilitate these tough conversations with people who had differences and his job was to help them find common ground. Maurice was also quite mathematical, even though he was a literary type and quite intellectual. For some reason, during those four days, Maurice was absolutely overwhelmed with the idea of mathematics. He would talk about how water sloshed across the floor and how mathematics was part of everything and he would gaze out the window and discuss the clouds from a mathematical point of view.
• 11:25
  He was watching some series on television about mathematics and how the fellow who was a mathematical genius was able to solve almost any kind of problem using his mathematical skills. So Maurice had some as well. We were sitting there at lunch and I said, Maurice, I get it. I understand you love math. I sort of like it too, but I'm not good at math at all.
• 11:49
  I have no concept of it. And he said, that's not true. Everybody has a concept of math. Everybody is good at math. I paused just like I did just now and thought, well, what in the world do you mean?
• 12:02
  I'm not good at math. I failed my math classes. I never figured it out. He said, there's the math in school and then there's the math in life. He had my attention.
• 12:14
  He said, do you know how much money you have in your pocket right now? I said, well, I probably got 35 Euro and some change. He said, do you know how far it is from this table to the car right there? I said, yeah, it's about 50 feet. He said, how long would it take you to get there?
• 12:30
  Oh, five, ten seconds at the most, probably less. He said, do you know what time we're going to meet for our class this afternoon and how long it will be before the class starts? I said, yeah, we have forty four minutes before our class starts. I know that because I'm looking at my watch right now. He gave a few other examples, like how far is it from here back to Paris on the train?
• 12:53
  I said, oh, it would take me about four hours if I leave right now to catch the train, work my way back to Paris. So every question he asked me, I had an answer for, and every answer I gave him was a mathematical conclusion. And after a few of these, his points started to sink in. He said, there's nothing wrong with your ability in mathematics. There may be something wrong with your ability to write down what you just said, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with your calculations.
• 13:22
  You more or less have it right. And in that moment, a little example, which maybe took ten minutes of Maurice's enthusiastic time, I went from thinking I am bad in math to thinking I am really good at street math, at life math, at day and night math, the kind of math that we all use every day. And after that, I started to notice everybody around me calculating all the time. That's when I realized it takes a lot of calculations to drive a car. It takes a lot of calculations to cook a meal.
• 13:58
  If you have a small hot water heater, it takes some calculations to know how long it will be before you run out of hot water when you take a shower. So within fifteen minutes, Maurice changed my complete opinion of how I viewed the subject of mathematics. I have to say, even though he did change my opinion, I'm still not able to do math on the page, nor am I able to do the kind of math sometimes I need to do to make the right calculations in order to come to the right conclusions, which will then allow me to make productive decisions for my life. So even with all of this, I don't necessarily use my mathematical skills, the clinical approach to come to emotional conclusions or make emotional decisions. Sometimes I just go with my gut.
• 14:48
  Sometimes I just go with what I feel. And often when I do that, it works out okay. I sometimes look back on it and think I could have calculated it more, but by and large, it works reasonably well over the long run, even though in the short term, it might not seem like a great choice. And yet we're all working with patterns, with ideas that we planted that grow, bits of seeds that don't seem like they amount to much, and yet upon reflection, they turn out to be quite beautiful, like wildflowers in a field. I suspect our intuitive decisions are based on the subconscious workings of our mathematical understandings, even though we don't feel them or see them at work, that moment of awareness, that moment of, ah, I've got it, this is what I need to do, could well be part of an entire mathematical calculation that is operating in the collective consciousness, helping us all motivate and move ourselves through the decisions that we have to make every year.
• 16:01
  Coming back to the flowers in the field, think about the flowers for a minute. They've been growing wild in the fields for millions and millions of years. And when you look at a field of flowers, you see mathematical order, you see design. Yesterday I was looking at a flowering bush in front of Mountain Stream here at Lake Heaton and butterflies were moving around the bush and the order didn't seem particularly logical or mathematical, and yet I could see how the butterflies were missing each other. Same thing as the murmuration of blackbirds, or recently I did a show on driving in Manila, same kind of mathematical movement.
• 16:48
  Flowers growing in a field do not appear to be moving. And yet the field is moving through the season and the flowers are doing what flowers always do. So if you take a closer look, say at the head of a sunflower, you'll see two sets of spirals swirling in opposite directions. The florets that make them up are not any random number. There are 21 going clockwise, 34 going counterclockwise, And they belong to a series of golden numbers called the Fibonacci sequence after a thirteenth century Italian mathematician in which each number is the sum of the two proceeding numbers.
• 17:25
  One and one equals two, two and three equals five, five and eight equals thirteen, thirteen and eight equals 21, twenty one and thirty four equals 55, and so on. So this is a sequence that's been there all along. And it turns again and again, season after season, over and over. If we are connected to this kind of mathematical operation that powers the entire universe, we've got a resource that is quite valuable. And what I mean by valuable is that we don't have to do a whole lot of training to access this indigenous skill, this indigenous sensibility that's been with us all along.
• 18:08
  And as we calculate our way through life, we use these mathematical calculations to create foundational thinking around what we believe. And then there are two kinds of beliefs. There are the beliefs that are based on the earthly awareness, the mathematical earthiness of it all. For example, I believe it takes two days of full hard driving to get from Asheville, North Carolina to Taos, New Mexico. And the reason I believe that mathematically is because I have done it so many times and guess what?
• 18:51
  The distance has never shortened. It's always remained the same. So I believe that because I have mathematical knowledge around that. I believe that a poem written with structure and form based on mathematical thinking can deliver insight about beliefs you can't prove, like what happens after death, or is reincarnation true, or is there a heaven somewhere or a hell? We could go on and on and on about beliefs that we have derived from our life experiences to try to explain the unexplained.
• 19:29
  A poem may not be able to get directly into the proof of something, but it can get into the sensibility of something. I've always liked the first stanza of Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens. It goes like this, Complacency of the Pinot Noir and late coffee and oranges in a sunny chair and the green freedom of a cockatoo upon a rug mingle to dissipate the holy hush of ancient sacrifice. She dreams a little and feels the dark encroachment of that old catastrophe. As a calm darkens among the water lights, the pungent oranges and bright green wings seem things in some procession of the dead winding across wide water without sound.
• 20:18
  The day is like wide water without sound still for the passing of her dreaming feet over the seas to silent Palestine, dominion of the blood and sepulcher. I like the feeling of those lines that Wallace Stevens offers us. No, I don't really understand what he's saying completely. I don't feel I have to fully understand it, but I do feel something in it, something that suggests more than the grounded earthiness of my existence. Something that hints at some spirituality, some divinity, something that is beyond me into the mysteries of things, into those realms where belief has more dominion than the mathematical calculations of proof.
• 21:17
  And when you move into those realms, the realms of belief that do not have to be proven, there's a relief that happens. I feel ease because I don't have to prove things that I cannot prove. I don't have to prove to you my belief that the universe is infinite is true or false because I can believe it. And that's enough for me. You don't have to prove to me any of your beliefs that can't be proven scientifically or mathematically.
• 21:51
  Fine, we can hold those beliefs. And when you think about it like that and stay grounded to the earthiness of things, I like to call it the earthiness of things, when you stay grounded to the earthiness of things, it, there's a relief there. You don't have to get so bundled up about all of the importance of things that you have no control over. They just exist, or maybe they don't, and yet you believe they do. So then you come back to the mathematics of living, the mathematics of daily existence.
• 22:23
  And how does poetry speak to that? First of all, if a poem has endured, you can be pretty sure it has some mathematical foundation to it. Even when the person who writes it might not realize that mathematical foundational aspect is at play, they might think, I just tossed it off the top of my head because the muse inspired me or the dwinde inspired me or the angels touched my heart and lo and behold, there it was like magic. All of that is part of the mathematical sensibilities that I'm talking about. Ah, mathematical sensibilities and magic.
• 23:03
  Rub the lantern and see what rises. The genie emerges from the depths of the light and shines above you asking for you to make one wish. And what would that wish be? Ah, I must calculate what would I wish for? Do I wish for a million dollars?
• 23:21
  Do I wish for a small pet to have for the rest of my life? Do I wish for a moment of clarity in the middle of my day? Ah, the genie will grant them all. One plus one is two and two plus two is three, will the genie grant them all? I don't know.
• 23:39
  Maybe the genie will, maybe the genie won't, but that was a little poetic leap I just made, a little improvisational leap based on mathematical sensibilities. Something happened and suddenly before my very eyes, there was the genie coming out of the lamp in my imagination. Or was there really a lamp right in front of me? My imagination doesn't know the difference. I have learned long ago to trust my imaginative impulses, not to think there's some fanciful leap over to the side that have nothing to do with my busyness of living.
• 24:17
  I'm trusting my imaginative impulses, my imaginative leaps as the center of gravity that help me calculate the forms I need to embrace throughout my day. Especially when I'm feeling a little down and not quite sure what to do, a poetic leap or two, like I just did with the genie coming out of the lamp actually might get you a wish. The wish being a little levity please, genie, just a little levity because I'm a tad on the fuzzy side at the moment. So leaning into that notion of the imagination being the lamp that you can rub that will always produce the genie has great merit because underneath all of that, have the functioning of your body, your instrument, the heartbeat. Your heart beats regularly, mathematically, and it beats until you die.
• 25:17
  And you can calculate year by year how many times your heart will beat, whether you count it or not. Now, friends, if that is not a mathematical calculation, a mathematical variable, a mathematical flow, I don't know what is. So we're back to the wildflowers of the field and the Fibonacci sequence. The wildflowers are delightful. The butterflies are delightful.
• 25:39
  And when you let your imagination do what mine just did, and hopefully will do again a little bit later, there's a delight that happens. And that delight creates a chemical response in your system that gives you insight, awareness, sensibilities, design propositions, ideas that you could not generate any other place. We can take great comfort in that, don't you think? And there are so many things in this world that just sometimes don't seem to fit, at least the way I view things. I have to say now on a political note, I am none too happy with the politics and I'm beginning to think that a lot of the decision makers there don't see themselves as primary leaders, but spare leaders trying to find a place to fit, and in the struggle to find a place to fit, they're imposing their will on millions and millions of people all over the world.
• 26:45
  And they're doing it because they have a narrow mathematical view of the world. Now you may agree with all of the political things that are going on in Washington right now, I don't know. I can tell you when I look at those things and see how they ripple out into the world, the mathematical calculations they seem to be making are based on some variables that I do not understand. But lately I have been thinking that they're driven by a sense of spareness. They're looking for something that will automatically endow them with a grandeur that for some reason they don't have.
• 27:27
  There's a misplacement that is happening there. It shows up in the bravado, it shows up in the judgments from a religious point of view, it shows up in the strategies around governance, It shows up in how the bureaucracies have been ripped apart and left in tatters, no longer able to work. The page that needed to be turned in the notebook that required some sort of analysis remains unturned. The message that needs to be passed along falls on ears that are no longer in a room, they're gone. Goodbye ears, goodbye people.
• 28:09
  It's an empty room. If a tree falls in a forest, will you hear it? No. If a tree falls in a forest, does it make noise? It doesn't matter.
• 28:19
  If a message is passed in an empty room, could you hear it if you were in the room? Yes, you likely could. But if nobody's in the room, it's empty. Nobody hears it. Thus the variables do not get passed around.
• 28:33
  The bureaucracy bogs down and nothing happens. I think it's because those people who are making the leadership choices currently feel spare. They feel empty, which brings me around to The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by TS Eliot, which I would like to offer to you now. I believe I presented this poem before on this show.
• 28:59
  I keep coming back to it because one, it's mathematical, it's well crafted, it's a classic, you've probably heard it before. The basic idea is Prufrock, a British aristocrat deeply embedded in the British society of mid twentieth century. Prufrock has done well, he has a bit of money, he has some status, he's getting older, he is feeling spare, he doesn't know where he fits in. Now the policymakers in Washington are not feeling like Prufrock right now. They still feel like they are the gods on top of the mountain.
• 29:41
  Prufrock has realized he's not going to reach the top of the mountain. He won't be the king. He's just an attendant Lord. So in his spareness, he realizes that he will never be noticed. I don't know if the policymakers in Washington and other parts of the world as well feel this way, but I often think of Prufrock and his dilemma and how he struggles to be noticed and yet he's not noticed.
• 30:16
  So in this poem, you will get the mathematical form that TS Eliot put together. You will get a man struggling for identity. We're all struggling for identity. And that may be the case with the policymakers in Washington right now. They're struggling for an identity that they may or may not have.
• 30:34
  They would like to impose that identity which they're struggling for or would like to adopt. They would like to impose it on all of us. It's an encroachment, if you will. So is math involved here? One plus one equals two?
• 30:50
  Prufrock wishes one plus one equaled two for him, but maybe Prufrock has realized that in his case, the choices that he has made based on his mathematical calculations around identity might be more like four plus four equals nine. So here's the love song of J. Effer Prufrock, just to give you a sense of what I don't wanna ever have happened to me, and I don't want it to happen to anybody else. So here we go, the love song of J. Alfred Prufrock full of all its mathematical calculations.
• 31:26
  Let us go then you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table. Let us go through certain half deserted streets, the muttering retreats of restless nights in one night cheap hotels and sawdust restaurants with oyster shells. Streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent that lead you to an overwhelming question. Do not ask what is it, let us go. We'll make our visit.
• 32:00
  In the room, the women come and go talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window panes, the yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window panes, licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap and seeing that it was a soft October night curled once about the house and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time for the yellow smoke that slides along the street rubbing its back upon the window panes. There will be time. There will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.
• 32:51
  There will be time to murder and create and time for all the works and days of hands that lift and drop a question on your plate. Time for you and time for me and time yet for a 100 indecisions and a 100 visions and revisions before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time to wonder, do I dare? And do I dare?
• 33:27
  Time to turn back and descend the stair with a bald spot in the middle of my hair. They will say, how his hair is growing thin. My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, my necktie rich and modest but asserted by a simple pin. They will say, but how his arms and legs are thin. Do I dare disturb the universe?
• 33:58
  In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all, have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons. I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. I know the voices dying with a dying fall beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?
• 34:28
  And I have known the eyes already, known them all. The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase and when I am formulated and sprawling on a pen, when I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, then how should I begin to spit out all the butt ends of my days and ways and how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all, arms that are braceleted and white and bare, but in lamplight down with light brown hair, Is it perfumed from a dress that makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table or wrap about a shawl and should I then presume? And how should I begin?
• 35:18
  Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets and watched the smoke that rises from the pipes of lonely men in shirt sleeves leaning out of windows. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floor of silent seas. And the afternoon, the evening sleeps so peacefully smooth by long fingers asleep, tired, or it malingers stretched on the floor here beside you and me. Should I after tea and cakes and ices have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, though I have seen my head grown slightly bald, brought in on a platter, I am no prophet and here is no great matter.
• 36:13
  I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker and I have seen the eternal footman hold my coat and snicker and in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it after all, after the cups, the marmalade, the tea among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worthwhile to have bitten off the matter with a smile, to have squeezed the universe into a ball, to roll it towards some overwhelming question, to say, I'm Lazarus, come from the dead, come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all. Would it have been worthwhile if one settling a pillow by her head should say, That is not what I meant at all. That is not it at all. And would it have been worth it after all?
• 37:10
  Would it have been worthwhile after the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, after the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts, the trail along the floor and this and so much more. It is impossible to say just what I mean. But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen, would it have been worthwhile if one settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl and turning toward the window should say, that is not it at all. That is not what I meant at all. No, I am not Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be.
• 37:57
  Am an attendant Lord, one that will do to swell a progress, start a scene or two, advised the prince, no doubt an easy tool, deferential, glad to be of use, politic, cautious and meticulous, full of high sentence but a bit obtuse, at times indeed almost ridiculous, almost at times the fool. I grow old, I grow old. I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare eat a peach?
• 38:41
  I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing each to each. I do not think they'll sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves, combing the white hair of the waves blown back when the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea by seagirls wreathed with seaweed, red and brown, till human voices wake us and we drown.
• 39:16
  And that was The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by TS Eliot. I memorized that piece a few years ago and I keep returning to it. I keep forgetting a lot of the lines. I have to go back and redo the lines and try to remember them again.
• 39:34
  The reason why that poem is so significant for me is because it reminds me about this sense of spareness that I have always wanted to avoid. I've talked about this before on this show and I think I'll probably talk about it more as time goes on. So when you think of the whole proposition being mathematical, and then you think of the mathematical calculations we make around our lives, and then you think of what Prufrock was trying to come to grips with as he realized his mathematical calculations around his identity, how he fits in, how he belongs, didn't add up. He finally gets to the end of the line, walks down to the shore, takes a bit of grit, rolls his pants, legs up and parts his hair behind. I don't even think he dared to eat the peach because it would drip on his shirt.
• 40:34
  It would be messy, wouldn't be something proper to do. He gets to the beach and he says the mermaids won't sing to me. I love that idea of hoping that the mermaids out there somewhere will sing to you, the sea creatures will sing to you. Actually the whole sea is singing. It was Prufrock's problem, not the sea's problem regarding the song.
• 40:59
  Prufrock could not hear the sea singing to him because his calculations were off. He had concluded he was seen as irrelevant, and the truth is he probably was because he thought of himself as irrelevant. So if everything is mathematical and Maurice is right, we intuitively know to calculate, and we may actually know how to create calculations in our lives that will add up to meaningful, productive, satisfying experiences, eventually adding up to meaningful, productive, and satisfying lives. That said, it requires a great deal of practice in order to be able to achieve that. So there you have Prufrock standing on the shore, looking out to the sea, thinking he's drowning in the human voices that are surrounding him, never once really giving a thought to the idea that he doesn't have to drown, that he could swim to the surface and everything would be fine.
• 42:00
  But for Prufrock, the calculations did not add up. And my conclusion here is that we don't actually have to mathematically add everything up. What I believe is important and the poets know this because when they write things, they understand the adding up comes from many different sources, not just one. And you don't always get it right in the moment. If you keep working, you will get it right.
• 42:31
  So that's why writers, poets, creative people play their music, play their banjos, play their guitars, blow their harmonicas. I'm on the music now. I can hear all of the symphonies playing. And Prufrock couldn't hear that. He thought he was a bee stuck on a pin wriggling on the wall rather than a human being that could unstick himself with no trouble at all.
• 43:02
  So with the little time we have left, I would like to continue on with this exploration of mathematical calculations and the math of life by offering you some improvisational work that will demonstrate how form can emerge from spontaneity. Allegra Houston, my creative collaborator and I just finished writing a little book titled Creative Writing. Guess what the subject is? Creative Writing, The Imaginative Storm Method. Now Prufrock would not be inclined to let his imagination storm all that much because he would think he would get into trouble.
• 43:41
  What actually happens is when you disallow your imagination, it's storming inclinations, you actually end up getting into more trouble. The Imaginative Storm book that we wrote has a number of photographs in it. These photographs are the photographs that we show every Saturday on our calls. People then generate words or phrases based on the imaginative impulses they have looking at the image. And then afterwards we go around the Zoom room, we always have it on Zoom, it's always free if you'd like to join us sometime, jamesnave.com, you can find a link there.
• 44:20
  And we ask people to generate words. So what I'd like to do now is to give you an example of how instead of writing the words, you can let the imagination swirl and create something out of what appears to be nothing. It's really form, imaginative form comes out of this. So I'm going to do some improvisational jumping around here. The image I'm looking at is the image of a young girl, sometime in the fifties, she's walking with a crocodile on a leash down steps.
• 45:00
  It's an interesting image. I think it was an advertising image back in the fifties. And so the words and phrases that I'm going to work with, I'll read them to you and then I'll do a little improvisation around them just to give you a sense of how it works. And when you read words or phrases, matter how arbitrarily chosen, each one will work as a prompt. Also each one will take you somewhere without any trouble at all.
• 45:26
  And you can put them together and come up with little narratives. So here it goes. This is the list. I asked for a dog, rich people's kids, cartel territory, off to the bakery, exotic pet sitting, snouts up, you're not the boss, white communion dress, happiest girl in town dealing with abstract reality, no wonder she's confident. What makes an evil grin?
• 45:48
  Eat rich, bring your own dessert day. Illusion of control. Don't worry, Mon, I'll be safe. Roped and tied. I think she'd rather have a dog better than one jump rope.
• 46:01
  And why not? Fierce companion, reptilian brain leads the way, fearless, fingerless, down the steps of brownstone that's not real, betwixt dealing with abstract reality. I'm into it. Say hello to the mailman, accessorize, accessorize, a door wide open. Now as you could tell as I'm reading the list, I'm having a bit of fun coming up with all kinds of ideas.
• 46:29
  My imagination is churning out imagery as I read that list. This is the mathematical aspect of your imagination at work. You don't have to control it. You don't have to write it down. You don't have to go back to high school and take algebra 101 all over again.
• 46:45
  Your imagination does it all on its own. So now what I'd like to do is zip around on this list and make up some sort of improvisational something. I have no idea what it is. And before I do that, I want to drop an idea here, something for you. You've heard people say, there's nothing original in the world, everything has been done.
• 47:08
  Nothing original in the world. Don't bother with your creativity. Don't bother with your mathematical calculations. Don't just be spare like Proof Rock. There's nothing original in the world.
• 47:20
  Now Proof Rock fell for that, but guess what? Everything that you do is original because nobody else has ever done it. You're the only one who's ever done it. You did it, it's original. It's never been done before.
• 47:33
  Many subjects have been addressed and people address them from different angles, but every time you do something, it's brand new and original. So here's my improvisation of the list. I was roped and tied under the rich people's kids cartel territory, and why not? When the fierce companion remembers that it's not real betwixt and between the dealing of abstract reality, I am into what you bring on the day of the illusion when accessorized and controlled, the door is wide open without anything to worry. I will be safe.
• 48:10
  I've asked for a dog and I will carry myself into the why not fierce companionship of tomorrow. Now I know that's really clumsy and I know that it might not make any sense, but it's a great deal of fun. Now I'm going to close by flipping through this book. You can't see me doing this, but I'm just flipping through and I'm going to try to make some kind of narrative out of it. Here we go.
• 48:35
  Creativity itself belongs to the dangerous ingenuity of those who draw quick inside the reading room. When the spirits fall to other people's explanations, I do not know what involves the certain intellect that I once followed into the darkness of my territory, insight that I was not blamed for. And there is further reading to be had in the darkness following the pucker of the cattle car. When you come back from your sketchy playground, do not let your heart be buried in the time of day or the schedules that free you up and range you across the strangest things you've ever believed. No, take yourself into the distorted explanations that others give you.
• 49:23
  It is a private laughter that leaves you without anything to say other than my creative practice has true confidence. And when you come back to see me tomorrow, I will let my rational mind tell you what my imagination plans to do. Meanwhile, have you ever heard someone tell you to drive yourself into the changing ways that you wrote once when you were meeting someone underneath a tree beside a formula that had no end, no conclusion, no beginning, no tomorrow, no anything, only blank. One plus one equals two. So there you go, that's my improvisational romp.
• 50:07
  Some of it makes sense, some of it doesn't make any sense, but it's something that I enjoy doing and I encourage you, you know, go into the good night, be the child that goes forth and picks up the stone and becomes part of the stone. The road that you can take, take it, it's the only road you'll ever take. Collect art and let your eyes absorb the art. Be improvisational, be alive, let the road love you and you love the road, these are all aspirations that I have. O jazz band, play that hurricane blues rising through the marsh grass warmer than a coastal moon, Magic June loves steel rhythm blues and robs melancholy to make me happy.
• 51:05
  Oh jazz band, when the air is thin, fill my mouth with night. So there you go my friends, we are at the end of this show. I really appreciate you tuning in. I'm glad you joined me. I hope you liked the romp.
• 51:23
  I love doing these things. Send me some stories from your side of the world, let me hear what's going on with you and let me know what's happening. You can always reach me, navejamesnave dot com, I'd love to hear from you. And on that note, thanks ever so much for tuning into Twice Five Miles Radio, Fertile Ground for Conversations Worth Listening To and Remembering. I am your host James Nave.
• 51:51
  We always air this on WPVM FM in Asheville and KCEI Cultural Energy Radio in Taos. We do it every weekend. Shows go out first there. Davine Dial, thank you for managing WPVM FM in Asheville. Robin Collier and Mike Tilley, thank you for managing KCEI Cultural Energy Radio in Taos.
• 52:13
  If you would ever like to join me for the Imaginative Storm Riding Gathering, which is a circle of people or actually it's on Zoom, so it's a square, We'd love to have you. We gather between twelve and 1PM Eastern Time on Saturdays. The Zoom link you can find always at jamesnaude.com. It's there for you to click whenever you please. We love having newcomers and you can always bring your friends.
• 52:39
  It's free. Invitation is always open. Walter Parks, thank you ever so much for giving us the theme song. I'm planning on leaving Asheville very soon, April, probably the twentieth or so. I'm going to drive through St.
• 52:55
  Louis and visit Walter Parks. Maybe Walter will give a radio show. I don't know. But for now, thanks ever so much for tuning in. I'll catch you on that turnaround somewhere down the line and we will go out with a good song from my friend Big John Sharer.
• 53:15
  Always love his voice and I think you will too. So here he is taking us home.
• 54:15
  Big John: Dying. We're now keep on churning because it won't be too long. Well, I'm so glad he let me try it again. Last time on Earth, I did a whole of sin. I'm so glad to know more now than I did, and gonna keep on trying till I reach a high ground.
• 55:15
  World. I keep on turning because it won't be too long. Well, I'm so glad he let me try it again. Last time on Earth, I did a whole world of sin. I'm so glad to know more now than I did, and gonna keep on trying till I reach a high ground.
• 56:10
  To the higher ground.