Scene: The Scruffy Pint, a low-lit bar with the faint smell of fried food and regret. Sloppy Joe is hunched over a beer. Julia Primm walks in with a tote bag full of books and sits beside him.
Sloppy Joe:
You ever hear of a woman who burned her notes every day and still won the biggest math prize on earth?
Julia Primm:
Sounds like a hoax. Or performance art. That’s not how academia works, Joe.
Sloppy Joe:
Exactly! That’s what makes it genius. Karen Uhlenbeck. Real person. Math whiz. Didn’t follow the rules. Ripped up her notes, walked away from problems for months, then came back and solved ’em fresh. Boom—Abel Prize.
Julia Primm:
You’re telling me she forgot everything on purpose? That’s absurd. What about building on your previous work? That’s what progress is, Joe.
Sloppy Joe (sips beer):
Nah, see, that’s the trap. You build too much on old junk, and you can’t see the new stuff. You get stuck thinkin’ the answer’s gotta look like yesterday’s failure. It’s like trying to fix your car with the same busted part that broke it.
Julia Primm (rolls eyes):
Oh please. That’s not how complex problem-solving works. Ideas evolve. They don’t just fall out of the sky.
Sloppy Joe:
Exactly. And sometimes the best way to evolve is to forget the dumb ideas you were married to. She called her brain “uncooperative.” Wouldn’t behave. So she let it wander off. Like a drunk uncle at a wedding. Then—bam—one day it comes back with a diamond in its pocket.
Julia Primm (defensive):
Well, sure, the occasional break is good. But destroying notes? That’s self-sabotage. That’s chaos.
Sloppy Joe:
No, that’s gardening. You prune the dead stuff so new stuff can grow. She knew if she kept staring at the same scribbles, she’d just keep thinking the same stale thoughts. That’s what she was unlearning—herself. Her own habits.
Julia Primm:
That’s inefficient. Breakthroughs come from discipline.
Sloppy Joe:
Tell that to the breakthrough. It don’t care how you found it. It just shows up when the path’s clear. And sometimes clearing the path means tossing the map.
Julia Primm (pauses):
Still sounds like luck.
Sloppy Joe (leans in):
You ever try to remember something, and you can’t, so you stop trying—and boom, it pops up?
Julia Primm:
Of course.
Sloppy Joe:
That’s your brain working without you. Sometimes the best thing you can do is shut up and get outta its way.
Julia Primm:
You sound like a Zen monk with a beer gut.
Sloppy Joe (smirks):
Beer’s just part of the enlightenment process.
Julia Primm (laughs despite herself):
Alright, Joe. So what—you think we should all start burning our notebooks now?
Sloppy Joe (grinning):
Only if you want to stop thinking like yesterday. Sometimes the best ideas ain’t the ones you write down. They’re the ones that sneak in when you’re not lookin’.
[end scene.]
