According to Pythagoras, 3 Equals 4

Diary Entry: September 23, 2024

Today, I left the women’s law classroom with the kind of optimism you only get before reality remembers to slap you. I was almost convinced I might land a job as a lawyer — or, failing that, perhaps as a lawyer’s assistant, filing papers and fetching bad coffee for someone with an actual career. Brimming with this hopeful delusion, I approached Professor Pigou. His reaction was — let’s call it politely deflating — and it sent me spiraling back into the archive of my questionable life choices.

The trail leads, naturally, back to the pandemic. Remember that little global performance piece? Half zombie-apocalypse, half absurdist theater. While most of humanity retreated indoors and learned to bake bread no one liked, I kept clocking in at the law firm. Our version of “safety protocol” was to swaddle the office in plastic wrap and spray daily doses of chemical mist, presumably to kill germs — or at least to kill employees slowly.

Meanwhile, the outside world transformed into a kindergarten of avoidance. Grocery store floors were plastered with circles spaced two meters apart, so we could all perform our socially-distanced waltz without accidentally brushing elbows. Public transport had stickers reminding us not to touch each other — as if that was ever the highlight of rush hour. It was all very civil, in a dystopian sort of way.

And then, of course, came the vaccines. A dazzling triumph of science… and salesmanship. Whole countries competed for what was, in retrospect, a pharmaceutical placebo arms race. I dutifully got my two shots, and now, every time I lift my left arm for too long, I’m rewarded with a phantom ache. A perfectly fitting souvenir of my small role in humanity’s great medical comedy.

But the most fascinating pandemic side-effect wasn’t physical — it was human behavior. Some people leaned on drugs until their families collapsed; others stockpiled mountains of toilet paper, as though diarrheal apocalypse was the likeliest scenario. Watching this unfold, I staged my own rebellion: I quit my job. If the world could stop spinning, surely I could too.

My move into academia wasn’t planned so much as it was… gravitational. Like a moth to a candle, except the candle is just another form of slow death. The inspiration? Pythagoras — yes, that one. The man traveled to Egypt for the kind of education you couldn’t get at home, hung around priests, and came back with the building blocks for math and mystical numerology. It seemed poetic to me. Less poetic was a childhood friend insisting that, according to Pythagoras, three equals four. An interesting reinterpretation of the theorem, and arguably the perfect metaphor for academic life: logical, rigorous nonsense.

What I always feared most was becoming an uneducated lawyer. You know the type: the practical schemers, sneaky courtroom tacticians who win cases with tricks but can’t string together a single theoretical thought. Georgian writer David Kldiashvili immortalized them, and I was determined not to join their ranks.

So, I sacrificed. Financially, emotionally, spiritually — basically, in all the expensive currencies. I prepared for my Ph.D. for four or five years, abandoned practice, traveled 40 hours just to get to America, and made the epic Chicago-to-Urbana pilgrimage. A young, naïve man full of conviction. Naturally, academia rewarded me with the exact reaction I got today: “Yes, Sir!”

When I arrived, education was in full digital bloom. Professors lectured in pajama bottoms, students attended classes as floating avatars, and Zoom was crowned king. I taught at Tbilisi State University, where I discovered the magic of “asynchronous learning.” Students never attended, never engaged, but somehow, grades appeared at semester’s end. An elegant fraud. Truly, academia is an innovation hub.

I consoled myself with the thought that my sacrifices — years without practice, relationships deferred, bank account drained — would pay off. After all, I knew my professor for a decade. I was here, not as a pixelated rectangle, but in the flesh.

So today, when after class a guest lawyer expressed interest in hiring me — me, with my 400 litigations and a decade of experience — I couldn’t help but feel that maybe, finally, this was the beginning of something. I hurried to tell Professor Pigou, to share the spark of hope. He stood by the green board, turned at the sound of my voice, looked at me, looked at the students, and pronounced with ceremonial gravitas:

“Yes, Sir!”

A moment others might dismiss as casual banter, or perhaps a spontaneous lecture in social distancing. But I, ever the optimist (or fool), decided to interpret it as a sign of respect. After all, if Pythagoras could prove three equals four, surely I can prove this was progress.