Is that 3 an exponent? If so, it is better to type that as (a + b)^3 = a^3 + 3(a^2)b + 3a(b^2) + b^3
Such annoyances with keyboards and math (which created need for all kinds of math-oriented typesets) is why I am scanning my handwritten notes. I think that the enormity of the project and the detail of the solutions (when it comes to proofs and notation) would inspire you. Also, upon witnessing the comfort I must have found in handwriting notations (as opposed to awkward uses of keyboard or dependencies on typesets), you might get a notion of where I am coming from.
I am paying respect to detail where nothing is taken for granted, and utmost care is taken to communicate the ideas. My notes may seem to be a relic in an age where fires destroy entire suburbs out West in North America, but it is specifically this transitory nature of our lives that I attempted such communications in the first place.
I think that you, Holden, will appreciate the final wave of digitized notebooks, as they are focused strictly on "the mathematics, the set theory notation, etc." --- I will work backwards, starting with the Analysis notebooks, and working back into other notebooks if time permits. It's slow going.
I am no longer a writer nor a philosopher. I am a protagonist in a science fiction story. I have to allow this protagonist to become once again obsessed with this "project." There is something oddly heroic in it. I imagine the delight of the earnest students who discover its existence, the "Hentrich Solution Manuals" that is ...
My mind is clearing up quite a bit, and I once again have developed a healthy fear of alcohol-induced brain damage. This is a spiritual battle, yes, but Hesse's Steppenwolf was no tinkerer with mathematics. Nor was our Buddha of Berlin, Arthur Schopenhauer. We are each our own living protoplasmic entity, with its own scars, fears, trauma ... its own memories, its own internal states, its own aches, desires, frustrations.
Do we not have to delude ourselves ever so slightly in order to take our engagement with mathematics seriously? Can we ever say that we have been completely honest as regards our understanding? What do tests reveal? What does it mean to have studied a text?
How much thought do we experience? Do we allow ourselves "time to understand" ?
How can any of us know if we have fully understood? Is there an imperceptible level of subjectivity which is hidden from our consciousness, and is this where genuine understanding exists?
How is communication even possible?