FRACTURE

Since the beginning of ninth grade, I’ve slowly fallen in love with mathematics. I can’t name any single reason for it—perhaps love, when it’s genuine, doesn’t arrive with explanations. It simply settles quietly down in the heart.

I think I’d grow more furious if someone intentionally insulted mathematics in front of me than if they insulted my own religion. I’m not sure whether this feeling is appropriate, but I think I’ve come to accept who I am.

I believe I don’t know a lot about mathematics—perhaps not much at all. But my affection for it has never faded. You don’t have to know everything about what you love. Love doesn’t arrive pre-informed—it begins in uncertainty, and grows as you come to understand it. Love can be genuine even without full knowledge.

This way of loving beyond complete understanding is not confined to me alone, but can be seen throughout human history.

Around three million ordinary people of my country—most of them simple farmers with little awareness of the wider political or geographical landscape—shed their own blood in 1971. They sacrificed their families and their lives out of a deep, unwavering love for this land. It reflects their genuine love for their motherland, even though many of them had no formal understanding of it.

Maybe love has always lived in that uncertain space between understanding and feeling.