the problem at hand?

i had meant to write something more substantial on thursday, rather than simply to post photos.

i mean: i still like the photos and all, but i still can't quite think of something to write. in fact, there is nothing to write.

that's the trouble, really:
nothing's quite done yet.

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i don't know how k. has done it, or how m. is doing it; by this, i mean make progress on a thesis problem.

since i've met him four years ago, k. has radiated the impression that the problem is being solved. there has been ebb and flow, maybe a little drought, but he has solved it and this april he will defend his work. if i believed in such words, it almost seemed his destiny; certainly none of us doubted him.

i haven't asked m. very much about her work, but she seems ever optimistic about it and the advisor says good things about it: good signs, both. in her i see a destiny of success, too, but i can't explain it; i only see it.

friends of mine .. friends i trust, they tell me that the problem isn't really the thing. a problem is just a vessel, a direction in which to collect thoughts from trained minds. a thesis is not always a problem solved, but always theorems proven.

(well, they didn't say it exactly in that way .. but it's close enough and you get the point, i trust.)

so i've listened to them and trusted them. they know, you see. they know from the same experience: having tried without success and leaving problems unsolved, they move on ..

.. to collect victories, where they may.

---

that's all i seem to do, now: wait for the rare opening, and try for a small victory.

when i attack a problem, it's not grandiose warfare, not flags or trumpets or brandishing swords or fine formations. there is no wisdom in plunging in, no certain victory in chances.

instead, it's guerrilla tactics: hit-and-run maneuvers and cautious reconnaissance against something that we don't yet know ..

.. except it is immense and occasionally predictable, but we don't know why that is, either.

i don't have a thesis problem anymore, exactly.

there is a conjecture or two .. none mine, either, but that's not my business. every week or so i have a half-dozen guesses, some borrowed from the past week and occasionally a few new ones.

of these guesses, some i throw out because i haven't the means to verify them. for others i do have the means to realise, soon after, that my guesses were wrong.

amidst all this, i read a little of this and that and keep watch with a scavenger's eyes. maybe i'll stumble upon something useful, something for leverage .. something for a guess or an idea that just might work.

i'm staying productive, at least. i'm working.

when we have few choices or none, we hope;
so, i hope.