Inspiration

LET X = X

Sometimes, even a known constant has to be declared.

Sebastian V

16 Dec 2025 — 2 min read

The art of naming a spade a spade.

The concept came from a very plain, almost uncomfortable thought:
what if we simply called things what they are?

Not reframed.
Not softened.
Not spun into something that collapses the moment you apply even basic logic.

In mathematics, let x = x is almost embarrassingly obvious. It’s the starting point—a declaration of identity. X is itself. Nothing more is being claimed, and nothing is being hidden. If you’ve ever taken a math class, you’ve encountered this structure, even if you don’t remember much else from the course. It’s the moment where ambiguity stops and definition begins.

In logic, identity is foundational—before argument, before interpretation.

That’s what felt relevant.

Lately, language feels inverted: terms stretched until they no longer describe anything real. Assertions are made that wouldn’t survive the equivalent of a simple equation. LET X = X began to feel less like math and more like a corrective gesture—a refusal to rename reality to make it more convenient.

Around the same time, I found myself revisiting music I’ve loved for years. Laurie Anderson’s “Let X = X” came on, and the reaction was immediate: oh—this still applies. Or more accurately, this should be applied. The work feels uncannily current, not because it predicted anything, but because it insists on clarity in a world that resists it.

Visually, I didn’t want this phrase set in a clean, authoritative typeface. That would have undermined the point. The lettering needed to feel human—slightly unstable, anxious, present. Something scribbled. Something that looks like it was written in real time, under pressure. The embroidery preserves that tension: precise in execution, uneasy in form.

This isn’t a provocation. You don’t have to be a mathematician to recognize the premise. It’s closer to a reminder—almost a constraint.