Tea Between Simulations

The first thing that excites me in the morning is tea. I wake up and it is the first thought, before any human contact, before I even remember which country I’m in, who I am supposed to be, what I am supposed to be doing (all the things that slowly pull you away from yourself). Some days, if I’m honest, it is the best part of the day, and it happens before the day has even started.

It goes back a long way. I have always been a bit of a solitary animal (my old blog was literally called solitary disposition), and tea has been my company for most of that time. It doesn’t need anything from me. No conversation, no small talk. It just sits there with me, and that is enough.

Then computations came into the picture, and somehow the three of us (me, tea and the computer) settled into a perfect relationship. I start a run, I make tea. The run finishes, I sit with the output and another cup. I don’t know if it makes the science any better, but I think more clearly holding a warm cup than staring at a progress bar.

If I zoom out a little, it’s the same everywhere. Between code runs and analysis, between sleep and waking up, and (on the heavier days) between thinking about life and thinking about death, there is always tea. It fills a void I have never managed to name properly.

There is an old Zen story I keep coming back to. The master Zhaozhou asks a newly arrived monk, “Have you been here before?” The monk says yes. “Go drink tea.” He asks another monk the same thing, and this one says no, he has never been here. “Go drink tea.” The head monk, confused, asks why both get the same answer. Zhaozhou calls out his name, and when he answers, says “Go drink tea.”

I like it because it refuses to explain itself. Been here before or not, the run converged or not… go drink tea.

Anyways, the kettle is on.