Proof of Life: Finding Art in Mathematics
How a Song Became an Equation
Joe Endozo, April 2025
What if love could be expressed not just in lyrics, but in equations? What if the shades of our most profound experiences could be distilled into something as precise as a logarithm? "Color My Heart" bridges the poetic and the analytical, inviting listeners to explore the interplay between raw emotion and the hidden structures that give it form. What’s illustrated in the cover artwork is a hidden metaphorical equation where we can explore this:
The Heart as a Canvas
Imagine your heart as a paint-by-numbers canvas. Each lived experience, every concert seen, every airport goodbye, a conquered hike, or even missed opportunity, adds another mixed medium layer. Over time, the once-blank space transforms into a library of strokes and threads, rich with depth and nuance. But how do we make sense of our tapestry? How do we extract meaning from the chaos?
The answer lies in an unexpected place: mathematics.
The Logarithm of Love
In mathematics, a logarithm simplifies exponential relationships, revealing the underlying order within apparent complexity. Logarithms help us handle numbers that are extremely large (like the distance between stars) or extremely small (like the size of an atom). They help us understand and describe the world more simply. Even if you don’t see them directly, logarithms are working behind the scenes in technology, science, and even finance. But applied metaphorically, it becomes a tool for understanding the very essence of our emotional lives.
Let’s break down the equation.
The Base (“color” or “c”) : The core of who you are—your values, your essence, your unchanging truth.
The Argument (“my heart” or “mh”): The sum of your experiences, relationships, and fleeting moments.
The Result: The distilled truth (“proof”) of your heart, rendered in its purest form.
"Color My Heart" is an auditory exploration of this concept. It is both a confession and a calculation, a song that captures the logarithm of my life since I turned 21, every love, loss, and leap of faith distilled in under 3 minutes. When Synead sings, “A new breath rolls in,” it turns a song that incidentally took 12 years to fully realize into a simple affirmation from a friend… to “feel the red heart beat under your skin".
Why This Song Probably Took 12 Years to Finish
Like a logarithm condensing chaos into clarity, this song took years to distill from a production standpoint. Although life has many detours, we live in an age that demands both feeling and precision. We crave depth but seek clarity. This song exists at the intersection of those desires, offering a space where vulnerability and structure coexist.
I’ve told friends, that if this song was a tree, I could cut it open and tell a story about each ring, but I invite you to experience "Color My Heart" not just as a song, but as a meditation on the patterns that shape us.
What is the base of your emotional equation? What colors have you layered onto your canvas?
By coloring your heart, you’re not just proving the argument of 'my heart', you’re aligning with what Buddhists call 'fundamental goodness'. And perhaps, the fundamental goodness beneath all equations. But that’s a blog for another day!
