Rascal’s Square, Dot and Circle
Two travelers were sitting next to each other waiting for a bus. One was getting a little tired of waiting. He turned to the other and asked:
“What is your name?”
“Hi. I’m Rascal.”
“Why are you called rascal? Isn’t that like mischievous?”
“Exactly like mischievous.”
“So, why is that your name?”
“My friends call me that because I show people what is not there, and help them touch the infinite.”
“How can anyone see what is not there and touch the infinite?”
“Well, you cannot use your eyes to see or your hand to touch.”
“Are you crazy? How can you see without your eyes, or touch without hands?”
“Those are good questions. Can you make a square in your mind bigger than your head?”
“Sure, I can include this whole terminal in the square that I am imagining.”
“Great, now expand the square out to about ten inches beyond the limits of the whole universe.”
“Uh? That is hard, how can one imagine something bigger than the universe?”
“Well, you tried, and now you have seen without eyes and touched the infinite without your hands.”
“Ok, I get what you are talking about. We use our imagination to see and touch an idea like a giant square. You are a rascal.”
Rascal took out a pen and made a thick dot on a piece of paper. “Do you know what this is?” he asked.
“That is a dot. What about it?”
“It could be a dot, but I did not draw a dot. I drew a cross section of a very thin tube. You are looking into a very long, very thin tube.”
“I see it. I mean, I imagine it. You are showing me something else that can be seen without eyes. I am looking into a tube that is not there.”
“Do you know what I did?”
“You drew a dot that is not a dot but the opening of a long tube.”
“That’s true but that’s not all. I drew infinity with a dot.”
“That’s amazing. This is my first time to see infinitely beyond my eyesight.”
Rascal drew a thick round shape on a paper.
“What is this?” he asked.
“A circle.”
“Think harder.”
“It is a round shape made with ink on paper.”
“Could it be a circumference?” Rascal asked.
“Yes, it could be that too.”
“Do only circles have circumferences?”
“No, everything does.”
“Exactly, I drew a circumference, the edge that surrounds everything that ever was, and will ever be. And it is filled with what?”
“I don’t understand, there is nothing in the round shape.”
“Of course there is. It is filled with all that you can imagine!”
“This is great. And do you know what?”
“What?” asked Rascal.
“Thinking about squares, dots and circles like this makes this whole bus terminal seem more interesting. It seems bigger now.”
“An excellent observation. This is the reality of where we live, we live in the middle of infinity, and that is an awesome place to live,” Rascal said.
There were announcements over the bus station loudspeaker.
The two rascals got up to go their separate ways, each one, without eyes seeing or handstouching, into the infinity all around.