No I aint crazy -- yet. Still, aint I beautiful as I always am?

There is a beautiful line in the movie "Proof" that goes:

"Let X equal the quantity of all quantities of X. Let X equal the cold. It is cold in December. The months of cold equal November through February. There are four months of cold and four of heat, leaving four months of indeterminate temperature. In February. It snows. In March. The lake is a lake of ice. In September. The students come back and the bookstores are full. Let X equal the month of full bookstores. The number of books approaches infinity as the number of months of cold approaches four. I will never be as cold now as I will in the future. The future of cold is infinite. The future of heat is the future of cold. The bookstores are infinite and so are never full except in September."

It kind of sums up how I feel. It somehow sounds right to be crazy sometimes.

If that's what it means to be a brilliant mathematician, then I'm glad I suck at math!

It struck me how "Proof" ran so much like my theory on writers and authors. That: there's no such things as brilliant young authors, only old wise writers.

While the formula for greatness in math lies locked in numbers, ours in literature lies in surviving our experiences. It is no strange coincidence that great writers in literature's history produced their greatest work at the sunset of their lives.

I believe there are many young writers who are very promising, a diamond waiting to be cut -- yet only few proceed on to greatness. Why?

I believe the key lies in their struggles -- in the tragedies in their life.

There are those who succumb, those who try so hard to reproduce the "magic" of their "wonder years," and there are those who rise up, and goes on knowing in their hearts who they are.

It's funny. In retrospect, what I thought was "great work" in my HS days now reads like some writer just trying to sound wise. While I feel I know much better now, who's to say what I would think when I'm in my 40's? Perhaps I'd pick up this notebook, read it, and say to myself: Oh, Jao, you presumptous fool. That idea's an old wagon. It's been gotten on so many times that no one bothers to hail it anymore.

But what do I know? I'm just in my "declining years" as the movie happily points out. And why do I care? In my theory, my greatness hasn't even yet started. I haven't even begun to recite my prime numbers. I'm just beginning to learn how to count to ten.

I'll be 40 in about 15 years, maybe then you'll have heard of me -- or not.

Well, it depends on whether I survive whatever life throws at me during these next 15 years, or at least, that's how it goes in my theory. And in the movie, as well as in life, there's no easy way in proving one's theory. Only an easy way in disproving one.

Prove me wrong then, if you will.