He loved numbers. He lived comfortably among them. He herded them by the trillion yet he knew many of them personally. He interpreted his life through numbers. When he looked out the window at a tree he saw it as a dynamic equilibrium expressed in numbers. He did not weigh his food as Tesla did, but he was aware of its weight, mass, volume and viscosity. He knew what wavelengths reflected from the food's surfaces and he knew how much energy he would gain from eating it.
He was a silent man.
Two nights a week he played Go in the back room of a book store near the university. He had reached the highest level usually attained by people who were not Korean. He had difficulty finding worthy adversaries.
There is little conversation among Go players. As the book shop darkened behind them they would walk or cycle away from each other into the night without a word.
Its true that his habit of playing Bach fugues backward on his harpsichord in the small hours of the morning had introduced him to his neighbors in the apartment house, but no friendships followed.
His work, hesitantly funded by a government agency, involved creating algorithms for any aspect of life, including the perception of beauty by the human mind.
He was ordering an Americano as he did every morning when he happened to meet the eye of the girl at the counter. He was taken aback by the striations of grey radiating from the pupils of her eyes.
It was a shocking moment. He was experiencing beauty with no numbers.
But it quickly passed.