I can only approach tinkering with mathematics as though I were a mental patient in an asylum.
I think of Van Gogh and his paint brushes in the hospital.
While there is no comparison to developing algebraic skills to painting, what I am looking for is a state of mind where there is no longer any concern with explaining to anyone why I do what I do.
I'll be meeting with my dad tomorrow where I will be prying open several dozen clams. As I have mentioned, he is 75 years old and still constructing walk-in freezers, which is very physically straining work. While I am under no obligation to discuss my "progress" (we both suspect that there is most likely no such thing as progress), there is no denying the awkwardness of the encounter (for me). He still encourages my mother to get a part time job. He never encourages me to get a job, and I really wonder what he REALLY thinks of me, although Schopenhauer strongly advizes against such concerns. He said it would worry us to death to know what people really think of us.
So, I suppose I will play the role of lazy deadbeat lunatic who can't handle the demands of holding down a job. There is no other role to play. Neither of my parents have any interest at all in mathematics, and I could not begin to explain how much discipline and dedication is required just to stay engaged with it.
This may go to the root of just why it is so rare for people, after they reach a certain age, to devote themselves to working through exercises in mathematics textbooks. It may even be perceived as something shameful, as though this is commendable in children, but, well, a real man drives a tank or flies an airplane ... or, at the very least, builds walk-in freezers.
Oh, Kafka, where are the words I am looking for? Using search engines is of no use when it comes to helping me articulate how I feel. Just like when I was a maintenance worker for the state, there is this feeling that, when working through textbooks, I must do so to be true to myself. There will never be a satisfying explanation as to why or what for.
When I stopped, all I wanted to do was stay drunk.
When I am feeling a little depressed about the level of mathematics I am currently focused on, perhaps wishing I were further along, I have to remind myself that multitudes of youth are pushed into advanced areas of mathematics without ever having developed substantial skills in the foundations of the fields they make careers out of.
So I have to be content living in an orbit that makes communications about what I am up to kind of awkward. Oh, this world is so full of shiit. If one's life does not involve employment or money or "certification", one could study from morning into the night every day, and still be considered a lazy and useless deadbeat.
Thank you, Holden, for encouraging me to sustain my interest. To this world, I must forever remain a clown. What does it mean to be true to oneself? When one is studying something, in order to be true to oneself, one would patiently work through the exercises to develop some skills and techniques.
And how does one explain that this is not really mathematics I am studying, but only techniques and algorithms? It's like when I studied computer science. There are many people who think that learning how to use Microsoft Excel is studying computer science. I am not kidding. It is gut wrenchingly frustrating to be judged by those who are simply incapable of knowing what you are about.
In my hometown, I notice that some sons manage their father's service station, which was inherited from the grandfather. Another son takes the family orchard (farm) and works it for his entire life. Still yet another pair of sons take on the family pizza restaurant (great pizza, by the way). Some may be critical of me for not taking on my father's trade: "He's 75 years old and still working like a horse. What are you doing laying around with books? You should have learned his trade, refrigeration, years ago. What a disgrace to your father. He must be secretly ashamed of you."
Oh, I can just hear my long deceased ancestors cursing me as a major disappointment, the end of the line for this family ... the one who dropped the ball ... the one who read Schopenhauer and decided to end the absurd comedy of reproduction. Yes, it is me. I'm the biological hoax that is to blame.
But I am not my father. I am not my ancestors. I'm just me. Some people respect me, while many do not.
Let us feast on clams tomorrow anyway, and share a couple awkward laughs at my poor mother's expense.
"Do you want to see my notebooks? I didn't think so. Do you want to see the tomato garden. The plants are nearly finished. Let's go."