DISCLAIMER: There is a reason I do not update a blog. I have a very small audience in mind. May Holden read the following, keeping in mind, much life Dostoyevsky's UNDERGROUND MAN, I am working on my writing style in a kind of stream of consciousness ...
Consider this a kind of replacement of my old style diaries. When a thought feels "forbidden" as I try to articulate it, then I think I am touching upon an important truth.
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Do you think "Studying Mathematics on the Dole" is a little more provocative than "Studying Mathematics as a Way to Endure Time" ?
I think "Studying Mathematics on the Dole" is more satirical sounding.
It flies in the face of all the talk (usually nationalistic or patriotic) about preparing the youth for the future labor force, to fill all these positions that require mathematical and scientific training.
Do the gorts really believe that the strongest motivation for learning mathematics is so as to become a servile scientist for the corporate state or some renegade billionaire's whims?
I don't trust most people. Let's put it this way, I don't trust most people's level of honesty ... I don't trust degrees or professional titles. Going back through a textbook, one may realize that a great deal is not retained. Society is a goddam farce, and still we drive over bridges and depend on powerful machinery. Science fiction Bizarroland.
Some may study meditation and ancient religious texts once they come to the conclusion that their very existence is a burden to themselves ... the greatest burden is one's own life and "what to do" in this absurd situation.
I guess studying mathematics, since it is such a slow, lifelong process, is just a way to exercise the brain. As soon as one attaches some kind of application towards some kind of career, one forgets the servile and obedient natures drawn to careers with corporations and universities and government agencies, etc.
Can we live with great contradictions? Do we have a choice?
I don't want to learn how to "build apps for smart phones" - really. I don't want to be a code-monkey.
There is the slight possibility that I may be one of the more honest intellects on the planet, and what I am doing is going back over some fundamental mathematics in preparation to spend the rest of my life just solving basic physics problems, and that's it. No drama, no genius/madman scenarios. Just an honest man tired of living in a world of lies and bullshiit.
I'll spend the entire day working on a few math problems rather than trying to seek "gainful employment". Maybe it is just a way to rebel against the demands to be a productive member of society.
Report to your supervisor so he or she can tell you to stock diapers on the shelf ...
Houston, we have a problem here ...
The entire class in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, of 2002, still unemployed, even to this day ...
Fuuck it. I'm going to relearn the core mathematics as a way to endure [enjoy] a life on the dole for biploar disorder. And why not? It is better than the alternative, drinking myself into oblivion and getting corralled into the "treatment industry" as a mental-health consumer so as to justify the careers of touchy-feely psychology majors or, even worse, 12 Step Recovery Movement zealots who have discovered a career in "carrying the message".
PUUUUUUUUUUUUUUKE!
Rather than make statements such as, "The fact is, there is no shortage of US students studying math, science, and engineering. One of the reasons for the collapse of the US economy is precisely that US math, science, and engineering talent, particularly, the talent coming out of the universities in the past decade, hasn't been allowed into the workforce," I will simply face the situation squarely ... and lose myself in a mountain of textbooks ... which, of course, can only be approached one exercise at a time.
Maybe, just maybe, I can simply enjoy the day being me.
Poetic justice and sweet revenge against a world that threw me overboard and tried to flush me down the the toilet 30 fuucking years ago.
Keep studying mathematics. Keep returning to the fundamentals over and over again, not for a job, not for a career, but ... and there are many who never thought it would come to this ... for sheer revenge.
Think about it, there are those with positions in government agencies who try to encourage one to enroll in programs that will certify them as being proficient in some technical capacity. This is for what? What is the latest gadget the gorts are going ga-ga over?
The reality is you could spend the good part of a lifetime or a long prison sentence just working through a big fat physics textbook (calculus-based and including "modern" physics). Some kinds of knowledge remains fairly consistent over the years ...
So, if we are in some kind of Open Air Prison, I can't see the zookeepers being too concerned if one of their disgruntled, nonbreeding creatures chooses to bone up on the fundamentals and work through mathematics textbooks rather than drinking himself to death or attending stupid AA meetings.
The fundamental ideas do not change, and I have reached a point where I am not impressed with ultra complicated explanations. I want to just be able to work through basic problems in the core subjects. Believe it or not, this would be a challenge to most of those who presume to represent our governments.
Am I expressing myself clearly or am I ranting or raving?
The revenge I am talking about is to simply go back and study fundamentals all over again from scratch as a way to keep myself grounded in reality, whatever that happens to be.
You can surely appreciate the difference in how I am approaching my education at this time, and how I approached it at age 17 or again at age 30. I was an enthusiastic student at age 30. I did well ... but I want to relearn things ... for NO REASON this time.
Now that I am free of delusions about "becoming a scientist" [HA!], now that I am content just being a mad philosopher who likes to witness how it takes a full day just to do justice to a few pages in a textbook, I am using these texts in ways that might warm the hearts of the authors of such texts, for I am actually reading them and doing the exercises so as to learn, and not just so as to (1) ace the exam, (2) get a degree so as to (3) get hired by a large corporation so as to (4) be able to purchase a Volkswagen Passat.
Did I think I was going to be able to drive a Volkswagen Passat when I gradated from the university in 2002? Would I have become a happy, gainfully employed gort? Would I have invested in dental implants?
Ah, my failure to find a place in this world may have been a great blessing. Now, instead of wasting my life jumping through hoops and being "productive" or "put to use," I can return to the books and actually try to enjoy the learning process ... now that I no longer have any delusions about "working toward some kind of goal."
My only goal now is to understand the little bit I will be able to cover while detached from society.
In a way, I am living some kind of depressing existential novel. It would be a depressing book to read, but it's not a depressing life to live. I mean, there is some level of paradox here.
I am in a position where I can honestly face the fact that those textbooks are challenging and demand a student's attention and concentration.
Let me also suggest that I am not such a strange phenomenon. What I mean is, there is most likely an army of me.
Please tell me the truth. I have gone mad, haven't I?
I am acclimating myself to the idea of accepting my status as a lifelong student ... and developing some virtues to prevent me from becoming too bitter and ... ugly.
The only complication seems to be in staying focused on a particular subject since they all seem to overlap. That's why I am trying to focus on particular textbooks and disciplining myself to work through them diligently. I would be a mental wreck without coffee and tobacco.
This is where the existential angst comes into play ...
You see, like anyone else, my own existence is my biggest dilemma.
What I live for is not the stuff novels or Hollywood films are made of.
Today I will be satisfied after making a few matrices orthogonally diagonalizable ... and, with no one to discuss these things with, I will romance my own private madness.
Out of respect for the couple people who care to keep track of where my head is at, I will try to correct all my typos in between banging my head against the wall.
Let's not forget the strong dose of madness. This obsession began with a Linear Algebra textbook I had purchased back on December 31st, 2015. I am almost to chapter 6 of 7 heavy duty chapters. Over the past few months I have collected textbooks in other subjects of interest, and I have been spreading myself fairly thin. I think it is best if I cool my jets and focus on getting through the one text ... but I can't help but peck away at others. There is a lot going on in my own little world, and I would not be able to follow my bliss if things would have panned out differently for me. This is what may irk those who would like to see me dragged through the mud.
The best I can hope to achieve is some kind of space cadet calm, the calm a mental patient might feel while coloring in a pad with crayons during quiet time.
All I want to do is remain honest about what I am doing to get through a day ... and I have to remember what a basket case I could be when binge drinking. Life is real.
I suspect that there are those whose sons may have been through US military service who would get a sick pleasure if they could just sick their dogs on me for having been granted a university education only to end up a statistic, the long-term unemployed, the unemployable personality, the freeloader, the intellectual deadbeat, the unpatriotic antinatalist, the retarded genius, the little useless runt who ought to be punched in the face repeatedly by good God-fearing tax-paying child-breeding citizens.
I know only too well that there are those who would take great pleasure seeing my kind dragged through the mud and publicly humiliated. No wonder I take such great delight in laying on the floor with my pencil and math book. I can't help but get sudden flashes of those who would like to bash in my skull and watch me bleed onto the notebook ... or perhaps they could blind me or break off my fingers so I couldn't hold a pencil.
Maybe it is better not to try to explain my strategy for enduring time.
There seems to be a tendency for "students" and people in general to feel that if something does not come easy to them that they are "mentally deficient", and so they do not want to attempt anything that will make them feel "stupid".
I want to resist this reaction. When something feels difficult for me, I do not want to just throw in the towel. So what if it takes me all day to understand something. I think that psychology plays an important part in the learning process, but I don't think the idea of "genius" is any help at all.
Learning can be a frustrating process. It's better to see ourselves as the struggling chimpanzees that we actually are. Then we might appreciate the little progress we actually do make.
For this kind "experiment in self-education", knowing the kind of honest appraisal I am after, it may be best to document the process in private diaries to eliminate any chance of posturing or holding back both fears and delights.
The key for me is allowing myself to think slowly and carefully, and I could never study this way in a formal "university" scenario. There was too much pressure, too much stress, too much cramming, too much anxiety.
If for no other reason, studying slowly just for personal satisfaction is like a key to a secret realm ... It is a solitary path.