Page 10 of Futbolista
“Do—”The word is drawn out and my mouth’s open puro baboso for whole seconds. My eyes are squinted, brows all stressed, head tilted. “Do I think … what?”
“That’s the question,” he says back, leaning against one of the curved, row-length tables a few steps below me. “Do you think. Period. Or, rather, question mark.”
“Well, yeah. Obviously.”
“And what makes you so sure about that? If this was something that wasn’t as obvious to me as it is to you, how would you explain your reasoning?”
My eyes drop from him for a second, glancing around the room, at the bodies in the rows in front of me, all their heads turned around to face me. Half of them are looking at me like this is some truly thrilling shit. Like they’ve been waiting all morning for someone to ask if we think. The other half look like they’d rather be anywhere else than here and are feeling grateful that at least they’re not me.
“I mean, I had to think about whether you were going to say anything after ‘think.’ I thought about how much time I needed to give myself this morning when I set my alarm last night. I’m thinking about what I might get for lunch later.”
“Good examples. However, all those things you listed are tasks a computer could do, right? Text autofill, a planner app on my phone, even the flip of a coin could take away the necessity of choice as to whether you’re having a sandwich or pasta. They’re less pondering and more decision making. What’s your major, Gabriel?”
“Mathematics.”
“Hmm. Braver than me, that’s for sure,” he says, getting some laughs and nods. I do my best to give him some kind of smile back, like,I get it. Math is a love or hate sort of thing and some people think numbers are scary. Me? I’d much rather be talking about derivatives and integrals than keep on with wherever this is going.
“In math, though, you rely on solid facts, right?” Coolidge continues. “Ten times ten will always be one hundred. You relyon formulas, like A-squared plus B-squared equals C-squared, and if it doesn’t, you did something wrong. That pi and its excessive specificity cannot be disproven.”
My shoulders rise and I nod while I let out a “Sure.”
“When you look at a math problem, are you reallythinkingabout how to solve it or simply going into that filing cabinet of all the things you know and finding the one that fits the need of the situation?”
“Those aren’t—”Breathe, Gabi.Calm, cool, collected. “I’m not sure what the difference is.”
“Andthatis where we land at the point of why we’re here. Further, if you’ll let me”—he hurries back to his desk, his face full of excitement; because I guess one of us has to be—“I can take a look at you and observe that you seem pretty fit. I’d assume you work out. Do you play any sports?”
“Football. Or, soccer.”
“For the school or for fun?”
“Both.”
“What position do you play?”
“I’m a keeper. Goalkeeper.”
He’s quiet for all of two seconds, his gaze somewhere close to the ceiling, before coming back to me. “So then, interrogating that for a second, do you put actual thought into the theory of goalkeeping or do you just … do? Is it only acting in a way that is the correct answer to the equation in front of you, to mix sport and math together? And I ask this question not to insult but to create a conversation. Is thought real? Or is it all just formulaic? Are we all simply machines in a universe that’s actually out of our control, only doing as we were built and predetermined to do?”
“You’re asking me if I’m a machine?”
“I’m asking you ifall of usare machines,” he replies, his arms reaching out like that Jesus statue in Brazil. “If we arecreatures of thought or creatures of simply existing to find the right answer. I’d guess that you’re very good at problem solving, Gabriel. A STEM major, athlete, maybe you’re among the best in the room at it. But this isn’t Introduction to Problem Solving.”
I force an all-lip smile and a short nod as I lean back in my chair, crossing my arms over my chest, everywhere going tense while I try to at least hold back most of the body language that would tell him I think this whole discussion has been a waste of a few minutes.
“We’re not interested in the quantitative data but rather the qualitative aspects of discussing existence. Do you get what I mean by that?”
“I—I could guess what most of that means.” My face clenches and my eyes have to look pretty lost. “But it just sounds like words to me, honestly.”
“What I mean is, I want you tothinkwithout needing to compute a solution to a problem, because so many things in life require thinking not as a path toward solutions but to discovery. And by the look on your face, I’d assume you have some thoughts on that.”
“I … sorry. I’m not—”
“It’s fine. I called on you to get your thoughts, not to talk specifically at you.”
“You—I don’t see a difference in coming to a solution and discovering something. It’s the same thing.”
“Then, say I’d written on that board ‘We are all robots.’ I don’t want a thesis on why that’s wrong, but, rather, I want a discussion on what makes us human. I don’t want you relying on all thefactsyou’ve been told growing up, explaining why things are the way they are. You were taught we all have hearts and blood, and thus, we are human. You were told that God made us all man and woman, and thus we can’t be robots. Leave those behind. I wantyou to find your own truths. I want to know not why all of us in this room aren’t robots, but whyyou, Gabriel Piña are a human. Thoughts?”
