I had intended to look for the book with my dad, but he beat me to it, wordlessly handing me the text. It had survived the "great flood of '06," when the sump pump stopped working and the basement was filled with about a foot of water, but not without a few... alterations. The sleeve, covered in wire-frame depictions of hypercubes, Penrose tessellations, and wormholes, was stained with the blue dye from the cover, which was warped and crooked, and the pages were yellowed and wrinkled and stuck together near the spine in some places, forcing me to pick my way through a few sections with the utmost care and concentration. I tried not to think too hard about some deep, symbolic meaning behind all this as I began to read Fourfield: Computers, Art, & the 4th Dimension by Tony Robbin.
I started reading it hoping for some help for my story, which involves beings who can move freely through time via the fourth dimension. While I did get a bit of help, this book has mostly opened my eyes to the unity of art, mathematics, and science, which in turn has further complicated my choices for a major and a college. I love science, but I also love art and writing, and I'd hate to have to choose between one or the other. That piece of crap Nav 101 isn't doing anything to help and, in fact, makes it infuriating to find colleges that fit one's interests. The last time I used it, I decided to look up colleges with good architecture departments and two of the colleges it suggested were Princeton and Harvard. No s---, Sherlock! But let me ask you, what random idiot's going to get into Princeton, especially one who doesn't throw down Nav 101 in a frustrated rage after it gives him some meaningless, condescending "good job!" for answering useless questions for the billionth time in a row? It just makes me sick. I wonder what their business model is if they have to pay schools to make them use it? My idea is that they're a secret front for otherworldly creatures who feed of the despair and exasperation of high schoolers. Yeah. That sounds about right.
