Year-yea, Year--yea

The infinite monkey theorem: A monkey hitting keyboard keys for an infinite amount of time will almost surely produce a certain text — like the complete works of Shakespeare, Plato’s Republic, or Melanie Marquez’s Don’t Judge Me, I’m Not a Book.

No, I kid you not. IMT — as I like to call it in my conversations with friends — can be proven mathematically. Wikipedia says, “If two events are statistically independent... then the probability of both happening (at the same time) equals the product of the probabilities of each one happening independently.

“Ignoring punctuation, spacing, and capitalization, a monkey typing letters uniformly at random has one chance in 26 of correctly typing the first letter of Hamlet. It has one chance in 676 (26 times 26) of typing the first two letters...”

The same monkey, by the way, has a one chance in two of producing every article I’ve ever written. Worry not, though, that monkey is well-paid.

Infinite Wo/Men

Now, if an infinite number of people ambled through an infinite number of lifetimes, then wouldn’t they almost surely be able to unlock the universe’s greatest secrets? Hmm... Yes.

That is the kind of question we ask ourselves as years come to their end — right before the lechon fests, and again after we injure ourselves with a millimeter-long watusi. We look back at 365 days of randomness and hope we’ve somehow managed to churn out something great, putting together the things we’ve done, hoping they’ll resemble some brilliant masterpiece.

Oh my god, my monkey typed that last paragraph.

2007

Many of us do manage to make something spectacular. This year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a set of recommendations for the world’s policymakers — it’s interesting sh** with lots of sexual innuendoes. Funny stuff.

In June, Austria passed a law lowering their voting age from 18 to 16. In July, JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out. Her Albus Dumbledore character followed suit in October. And, in November, Kris Aquino released her platinum-selling album, for which she wrote and sang 16 of her own inspirational love songs. Or not.

We are a little bit better than infinite monkeys. We, unlike them, have a purpose attached to our ambling. Nineteenth century literary critic William Hazlitt once said that man is “the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are what they ought to be.” And unless you’re some jaded Gen-Xer, we slave away each day to get to where we ought to be.

Resolut4r3wer

That is why many of us will, after getting hit in the eye with that watusi, form a list of things to accomplish within the next 365 days. Five monkeys typing for 4,282,347.7 hours will almost surely come up with the phrase, “new year’s resolut4r3wer.” And so will you.

My resolut4r3wers: One, lose weight. Two, lose more weight. Three, blame lost weight on how media twists reality. Four, be the first ever Dove Man. Five, gain weight in order to: Six, lose weight under Vicki Belo’s knife while also, (seven,) bagging a lucrative endorsement deal.

What’s yours?

We must look back at the year that has just passed and see where we lacked, and then look forward to next year, promising ourselves we will do better — that one day, despite our random rambling, despite our dilettantism (my monkey typed that word), we will give birth to something great.

Conclusion

If we lived infinite lives, we would almost surely. But then, we don’t — because the Mayan calendar puts the end of the world at 2012.

But, maybe that’s why we carry on with a sense of immediacy, with the aforementioned sense of purpose. There is something about things having ends that makes them important. Years and lives are two examples.

Seven hundred eighty-eight monkeys typing for 1,213,876,344 days: my column. You living life for the next 365 days: make it Supreme.