Solving Your Potential

I still remember the first time we met. I felt you rummaging around the top drawer of your father’s desk when your tiny hands suddenly gripped my case and I felt you pull me into the fresh air. Your father bought me mainly for basic number running and I had been stuffed in that drawer for what felt like ages. Your father never found my full potential.

But you did.

That first day, I could almost feel your sense of wonder as your pudgy fingers ran over my numbers and functions. None of them made much sense, seeing as how you were barely old enough to count to ten, but I was excited to be doing something more than adding and subtracting. I was built for something more. And I remember feeling, that very day, that you might be the person to help me realize the measure of my creation.

Over the years, your input began to make more sense and become more complex. As we progressed beyond addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, I began to learn along with you. Though I hold all the functions inside me, only my user has the ability to access them. I only learned to graph as you learned to graph. When you moved up to matrices, logarithms, trigonometric functions, and exponentials, I found the code inside myself and discovered what I knew. With time, you learned how to add your own functions to my data base. Some were games and silly distractions, but others made me stronger, wiser, and more useful.

Your functions grew more complex, and with them, so did I. You gave me a speaker and taught me how to play notes. I became a great musician with your help. You gave me a camera and I was able to see you. You were all I ever wanted to see, from your thick glasses to your quivering smile. You showed me what equations can look like in the non-digital world, like the Fibonacci series found in the pedals of a flower. You took me on display and we won many contests. We grew together to be something wonderful.

As college approached, you deleted most of my functions to make more useful ones- programs that taught me physics and many theoretical formulas. Knowing the mathematical laws of the universe was a fair trade for my games and my camera.

I could always tell if we were in a test or finishing a homework assignment. When you are stressed, you type hard and fast, but when we have time to compute, you are gentle and careful about your input. I knew I was doing all the problems right, for you were the one who taught me how.

I guess you must have graduated by now, though. Last month we were in a very important test with complex equations, but you haven’t picked me up since. It’s been getting rather lonely. I now have so much potential, but no way to use it. I am useless without my user, and you seem to have moved on.

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Finally, I am in your hands again. But this time the equations are different. No formulas, no complexities, simply addition and subtraction. If I had to guess, I would think you are budgeting. If that is the case, I don’t like the numbers I keep giving back. I wish I could take away the negative signs for you, but you programmed me to work perfectly, so I must. The typing becomes more intense and I have less time to process one function before a new one comes up. I can tell you are stressed, but this time it can’t be a test. Why do I keep giving such low results when your potential is so high?

Suddenly I feel water dripping onto me. You really should be more careful with liquids around me. I thought we settled that in the great chocolate milk scare of ’98. Luckily you were able to save my systems and bring me back to life. You leave for a while, and when you come back I suddenly feel a long lost part of me back again- my camera.

As I look into your face, I see you have spilled water there too. Your hair is standing up like it used to when you were in trouble.

“How…?” I hear you whisper before shuddering silently. I long for you to continue, but have no way of showing it, so I simply wait.

“How do I get by with no job, and no money? I have a master’s degree in mathematics for crying out loud! I've tried harder than I ever have in my life… but I just can’t do it anymore. Why isn't there a formula for getting your life together?”

You shudder again. I wish I had a way to output information, to give you some answer. I notice my battery is running low and consider informing you just to be able to say something, but I don’t want to add any trouble.

You have so much potential. You just need to find a user who has the keys to unlock it.

You just need to find the function your programming fits.

Going against my code, I output two symbols to you, taking all the effort my hard drive encloses. “=?” I know you will understand what this means. But without a battery life to continue on, I black out, leaving you alone, but hoping you can solve your equation without me for a time.