Summer Reading: An Abundance of Katherines by John Green; Entry #3

"Colin wanted to be all-the-way happy, he really did - because ever since he saw the steepness of the curve with Lindsey, he'd been hoping that it'd be wrong. But as he sat there on the bed, the note in his still-shaky hands, he couldn't help but feel that he would never be a genius. For as much as he believed Lindsey that what matters to you defines your mattering, he still wanted the Theorem to work, still wanted to be as special as everyone had always told him he was.

The next day, Colin was feverishly trying to fix the Theorem while Hassan and Lindsey played Hold 'Em poker for pennies in the Pink Mansion's screened-in porch. A ceiling can blew the warm air around without really cooling it. Colin was half paying attention to the game while scribbling graphs, trying to make the Theorem account for the fact that Lindsey Lee Wells was, quite clearly, still his girlfriend. And the. Poker finally clarified  the Theorem's unfixable flaw. 

Hassan shouted, "she's all in for thirteen cents, Singleton! It's a huge bet. Should I call?

"She does tend to bluff," Colin answered without looking up.

"You better be right, Singleton. I call. Okay, then 'em over, kid! Gutshot Dolly has trip Queens! It's a hell of a hand, but will it beat-A FULL HOUSE?!" Lindsey groaned with disappointment as Hassan flipped over his hand.

Colin knew nothing about poker except that it was a game of human behavior and probability, and therefore the kind of quasi-closed system in which a Theorem similar to the Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability ought to work. And when Hassan turned over his full house, Colin all of a sudden realized: you can never make one to predict future poker hands. The past, like Lindsey had told him, is a logical story. It's the sense of what happened. But since it is not yet remembered, the future need not make any sense at all.

In that moment, the future - uncontainable by any Theorem mathematical or otherwise - stretched out before Colin: infinite and unknowable and beautiful. "Eureka," Colin said, and only in saying it did he realize he had successfully whispered. 

"I figured something out," he said aloud. "The future is unpredictable." 

Hassan said, "Sometimes the kafir likes to say massively obvious things in a really profound voice.""(Green,211-213)

The entire story, Colin Singleton was working on a theorem to predict the future of every relationship. He was very confident in himself while working on it.

He always desperately wanted to get back with his ex girlfriend, Katherine #19. In the end, those 9 letters didn't matter; they didn't have to be the name of his next girlfriend. He realized, after about a month in Gutshot, Tennessee, that he was in love with Lindsey Lee Wells. 

Of course, by this point he had, (or had thought,) that he had successfully finished the theorem. He plugged in Lindsey and himself to the equation and it said they would only last 4 days. Luckily, his theorem did not work.

On the 4th day of their relationship, Colin discovered no one can predict the future. Finally, he didn't care about being famouse or being a prodegy. All he now wanted, was to live his life excited for the surprises the future brings.