It’s Mathematical

I recently visited Machu Picchu in Peru.

An ancient city built by the Incas almost 600 years ago. Layered granite with stones weighing up to 50 tons, intricate interlocking mechanisms holding them together. Coursework so perfect that you couldn’t slip a piece of paper between them if you wanted to.

The Inca had a special relationship with stone—it informed their culture. Stones were like people—each with personalities and uniquenesses. They believed a rock might grow tired, for example, and not want to be moved any further. And the way they layered stones was masterful.

I asked our tour guide Edgar how they moved these giant stones without technology or machinery.

He said, “If you have maths, you can solve anything.”

We have maths!

We can solve anything?

This may be true. I remember my partner Dana using the Pythagorean theorem to make sure the shed he put together in the backyard was at perfect 90 degree angles.

If anyone knew the problem-solving capacity of math, the Incas did. They were architects and engineers. They used sand, ramps, and rolling mechanisms to move rocks. They created templates and aqueducts. They built trapezoidal openings and windows. And they were hard workers: they likely had 30,000 people working in one construction area.

But what then about matters of the heart?

Can maths solve those?

Matters of the heart are not calculus.

But equations can be mysterious. For example, where in your life does 1 + 1 = 3? What relationships do you have that are more than the sum of their parts?

Or perhaps you are in a relationship where 1 + 1 = -1. I was in one of those once, and it was not a winning proposition.

Does your job plus you result in something more than the two of you separately? Or perhaps your job leaves you feeling emptier than you were when you started.

This can be a lifelong quest: To connect with relationships, activities, and labor where your life equation expands beyond yourself. Relationships, events, and things that help you add exponentially to the world, not subtract from it.

One other thing we learned from the Incas: their walls were sometimes layered two stones thick. This means that the courses one could see on the outside of an Incan wall are not necessarily what one can see on the inside.

I suppose that’s also true of matters of the heart.

We can see what equations might appear to be on the outside, but only you know what is happening on the inside.