Painless

Several years ago, a friend of mine described mathematics as an anodyne. I had to look it up, and anodyne means something that relieves pain, particularly the pain of life. (Death, in the 1500s, was also described as an anodyne, but let’s not go to extremes.) I realize that to most of my friends mathematics, particularly the kinds that include letters, feels like the reason for the pain and not the cure of it. But bear with me for a moment.

I’m fortunate enough to know people who absolutely love to fix cars, including my car. I’ve even more fortunate to know people who love knowing the ins and outs of the United States Tax Code so well that they can find me a refund every year that allows me to pay the guy who loves to fix my car. It’s a win-win-win scenario. If, on the other hand, I had to be the one to do the wrenching and the tax-code referencing, I might end up tearing out all my hair. At tax time (and tuneup time) I’m particularly glad that there are technical specialists who get to make a living at what they love to do.

So even if you dread math, please give a pass to the math teachers and mathematicians who do what they do because they love math so much that they can’t imagine doing anything else. I’ve been reading a lot about math and math history in the last week, and it seems that the only thing more influential to a young mathematician than an outstanding math book is an inspiring math teacher. As it turns out, even some of the best mathematicians in the world almost gave up math entirely until they had a math teacher who emanated a love of mathematics and inspired them to greatness. A poor teacher of any subject will certainly make you want to turn your back on it, unless you have other influences to which you can turn. When you don’t have an alternative, your teacher’s attitude toward the subject greatly influences your own — and the influence is probably stronger if their attitude is negative. (He doesn’t seem happy teaching physics. So why would I want to do that and be miserable, too?)

Think of your good teachers, your inspiring teachers, who opened the door to a new world for you, and made you feel like you had every right to go through that doorway and into that new and exciting world. It didn’t have to be math, but it could have been. Maybe it was writing, or acting, or singing, or woodworking, or playing baseball. Sewing your own clothes. Separating hydrogen and oxygen in the lab. Playing the clarinet. Or watching a great teacher and deciding that being a teacher yourself was what you wanted to do.

And sometimes you have a teacher who is a delight to just have as a teacher. Their love for the subject is something special to watch even though you know you can’t and won’t follow in their footsteps. You can honor them by respecting the subject. Remember watching “Orange County Choppers”? Remember Rick the fabricator? Rick Petko didn’t get drawn into any of the family drama that fueled the ratings for the show. He just grabbed a piece of sheet metal, went to the fabricator, and did stunning work. (I had to look up his last name, but I still remembered his first name after many years because of his sheer talent.)

To this day I’m grateful when I see someone working in what is clearly their dream job. Whether they’re a social worker or a team lead or the kid taking my order at the drive-thru, you can tell they’re in exactly the right place at the right time and doing exactly what they’re supposed to do.

So right now I’m reading about math and how to think mathematically. The problems that I’m given to work on are extremely practical problems taken from real life. And as I’m trying to construct formulas that take the input and produce the output, I’m left wondering if I was ever asked to do this kind of work before. I may not have been the kid who asked, “Why are we doing this?” in math class, but I sure as heck thought it to myself. So I would like to think that if I had been asked to create a practical formula, I would remember having done it.

The reason I’m going back to work in geometry now is because I remember what it felt like when I took it in 10th grade. The geometry classes from the 1980s aren’t like the geometry classes they teach now, so there is a bit of a generation gap here. When I took the class, we studied proofs and constructions. Figuring out the logical steps and using a compass and ruler to follow directions and create a particular shape struck me as eminently practical — at the time, much more so than algebra did. In a way, I’m going back to the same textbook and the same exercises to do a little time warp and go back to when things made a bit more sense. We’ll see how that goes.

Today I said farewell to two campus friends, and I’m not sure when I’ll see them again. August? Next year? Never? Right now there’s no way to tell — and no reason to make myself upset about it. So I’m stockpiling the things that make me feel happy, grounded, and secure — until we meet again.