Grief/recovery and hyperbolic functions
Having thought of some online friends that have suffered some heavy personal losses recently, I got to thinking about the recovery process.
They say recovery is a process, rather than a goal. The pain never really goes away, but it does diminish over time. You know what this sounds like? A hyperbolic function such as f(x) = 1/x. In this, the x and y axis become asymptotes, values that can be approached but never reached. In that, they represent total recovery.
I was trying to think of shifting the y asymptote over to 100, so as to represent 100 percent recovery. Then the function becomes f(x) = 1/(x + 100). To make the function make more sense, I'd make it a negative so f(x) = -1/(x + 100).
So the x axis would represent percentage of recovery, and the y axis would represent time. Now I realize recovery is not as neat and tidy as this. Some days you feel almost there, and later on there's a backslide, so a given percentage may be crossed more than once. However the general trend should be towards one hundred percent, even if the path getting there isn't a smooth curve.
Anyway, that's the kind of things I think about when driving sometimes.
They say recovery is a process, rather than a goal. The pain never really goes away, but it does diminish over time. You know what this sounds like? A hyperbolic function such as f(x) = 1/x. In this, the x and y axis become asymptotes, values that can be approached but never reached. In that, they represent total recovery.
I was trying to think of shifting the y asymptote over to 100, so as to represent 100 percent recovery. Then the function becomes f(x) = 1/(x + 100). To make the function make more sense, I'd make it a negative so f(x) = -1/(x + 100).
So the x axis would represent percentage of recovery, and the y axis would represent time. Now I realize recovery is not as neat and tidy as this. Some days you feel almost there, and later on there's a backslide, so a given percentage may be crossed more than once. However the general trend should be towards one hundred percent, even if the path getting there isn't a smooth curve.
Anyway, that's the kind of things I think about when driving sometimes.