Maynard

i set out to write about my relationship with math but ended up writing a short autobiography as well, hope that's okay

i think the story is interesting and i also think parts of it can serve the reader

hey, quick content warding: suicide mention, violent imagery, harsh language

---

in the early years (ie, united states elementary and middle school) i was pinned as a "gifted kid", as i suspect many others on this website were. i excelled in a few areas (and did not in some others), and math was the one that i attached the most to

being "gifted" in math had two primary effects. the first was that i was placed in higher-level classes, which is neat. the second, much more insidious effect, is that i started to pick up the idea that i am "someone who is good at math". i was praised in various ways, largely by teachers, and that praise burrowed into my little brain and made itself a part of my identity

for high school i attended a very good math-and-computer-science-specific program. undoubtedly this explains a large portion of whatever skill and knowledge i have in mathematics: i got a darn good education (relatively speaking)

during high school my identification with being a "math person" progressed, evolving into a subtle, strong sense that i need to do math things in life, to be—perhaps—one of the greats, to invent some new, grand, novel piece of mathematics and bring it to the world

also during high school—logic class in particular, which was taught by a fabulous man—i really fell in love with math in some certain way, perceiving it as the language of the universe, something Holy and Truthful. it was a genuinely spiritual experience! (i no longer have this perception, but we'll get to that)

this all sounds great, and in part it was beautiful. receiving a fantastic education in a subject that i perceived to have higher significance! it gave me a sense of meaning. however, i was not remotely happy. keeping up with school was breaking me, and an extremely maldeveloped crush on a girl was breaking me even more. i experienced suicidal ideation regularly during the later years of high school. plus, i lacked any felt awareness that what i was experiencing was "wrong" or "bad" or "unhealthy", so i did not fight back against it

(all that pain is taking a long time to process; now, some 4-5 years later, i am dead in the middle of untangling myself. i've discovered controlling patterns of anxiety which seemed to be leftover from my high school experience, found out that i am almost certainly ADHD and probably also autistic (yay!), am learning how to have desires and how to relate to people, and generally am figuring myself out)

something else happened during high school which is a little more inspiring. i started to do math on my own, for no real reason other than an irresistible urge to do so (ADHD, anyone?). i recall plopping down a thick packet of paper on the desk of a teacher, presenting some math i'd been up to over the past who-knows-how-long. he definitely didn't read it (because he definitely didn't have the time)

plus, it wasn't, uh, overly good. the math itself was fine, actually—if not novel—but its presentation was less than good and less than concise. probably he didn't really want to read it in depth, and i can't blame him

it doesn't matter if he read it, though, and it also doesn't matter if the math was good or not. what's significant is that i was doing math, on my own. let me be clear: there is a dramatic difference between taking a formal class on some mathematical subject and just going out and having fun. one of them makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon, and the other will probably always have my heart, at least a little bit

seriously, i can't overstate how much fucking fun math can be when it's coming from a place of freedom and play

and that's why i stick with it, essentially. i haven't fully enjoyed a math class in years, possibly ever, but i know that underneath the hood there's a beautiful subject waiting for me—yes, me, and also you, yes, you—to come and interact with it on a personal, intimate level. it can be your subject, for you to explore as you please. you can be a peer to Erdos and Cantor, perhaps not in terms of raw talent, but in terms of (mathematical) personhood

this habit of making math my own probably underlay my tendency to do my own math. it seems to manifest in other ways as well. in general i've tended not to take issue disagreeing with people even when i know less than them^[1]; this allows me to make anything my own, to walk into a novel subject and say, "ok, i will now engage with this subject directly, on my own terms. your 'guidance' will be received as suggestion". this habit is absolutely a double-edged sword, and in recent years i've noticed it lessening

[1]: here's a story that my dad likes to tell. when i was young i went up to some NASA scientist and asked why ice floats (i don't know what we were up to around a NASA scientist). he explained, i guess, that ice is less dense than water, which causes it to float. i proudly replied "that's not what i think".

one other manifestation of math being "mine" is that i find, often, that the mathematical questions i ask and mathematical work i do is often seen as extremely strange by others. for instance, i have a tendency to spend time poking and prodding at already-established concepts: what is this thing really? why this definition? what's the history behind this? why don't we do it some other way? generally other mathematicians Do Not Give a Single Fuck about these kinds of questions, and give me weird looks for asking them

the motivation for my "strange" behaviour is actually rather plain: i have a belief that almost all mathematical pedagogy is really, really, really bad and that such a state of affairs is harmful to both the student and the established mathematician. mathematical concepts are usually presented without context, social motivation, timeline, or personhood, and accordingly i'd bet that most math is only, like, one-quarter understood, even by people who "get it". to be fair, the stuff is difficult, and teaching it is even harder

i know some mathematicians, if they were to read this, would see me as naive and woefully mistaken. they might be right!

so: "gifted kid" in middle school, depressed student in high school, developed a sense of math being "mine" (as it is for all people). next up is college!

i attended college for a year, continuing to ask my weird math questions and do math on my own. i could tell a couple of my professors appreciated it, which was very nice. COVID hit and i realized i didn't want to do college remotely, so i dropped out. then i spent a year doing basically nothing, deathscrolling twitter for hours a day, experiencing something like manic/depressive episodes, and not liking myself too much. i did, however, manage to get a job in software, which was nice

during my year off i realized that, actually, i miss learning math, and i want to get back to it. i also realized that neither my boss nor my boss' boss had degrees in the field. gears turned in my head and i decided that, probably, i also don't need a degree. so i decided to "go back to college", taking individual courses but not getting any credit for them. no gen eds and no degree; just educational content

i had no college in particular i wanted to go to, so i said "fuck it" and moved to minnesota where a friend of mine lived. i also had a crush on her, and that developed, uh, poorly. skipping over a year of time and over an immense amount of emotional pain (at some points literally physically paralyzing), i then moved to california to continue my studies at a different school. funnily, i again moved near a friend i had a crush on; this time, however, i made sure that she wasn't too much of a reason for moving, that i would be okay no matter what happened between us

and that's where i am now. living in ca, learning various Math Things through the U (currently category theory!), and intermittently posting about math on the eggbug website, often regarding the same topics over and over

from here im not quite positive where i want to go, but i think maybe i'd like to see out my desire to try to improve mathematical pedagogy. take some enigmatic subject—topology, perhaps—and try my hand at making an introductory text. grad school is also on the radar, if i can manage to convince one to take me without a degree

we are now up to date on the timeline. however, there is still an important part of the story to tell

in high school i had an experience of math as a strong part of my identity: i wouldn't say that i felt it was my destiny to do math, but i think i'd say that i felt like it was somehow my duty to do it. additionally, i couldn't help myself from doing it

this identity grew pretty anxious, neurotic, and unstable over time. i would get jealous when i saw other individuals who i perceived as being better at math or more prolific than me (i still do, sometimes). i felt like i had to be the best, or i was a failure, and at the same time i had repressed awareness that i definitely wasn't the best. that's a good recipe for some serious discomfort

during, i think, my first year at the ca college i felt this tension coming to a head. i was either going to be broken or i was somehow going to mount this neurotic identity. luckily, the second occurred: over time, math got demoted in my mind from a holy thing, of the utmost importance, more important than my well-being, to just another thing that people partake in—although a particularly wonderful one

this story of my identity complex around math has a second half which i haven't yet mentioned: being a programmer. all the time i was in relationship with math, i was in relationship with programming as well. the abridged version is that in middle school i participated in a programming club and after that my ADHD had me teach myself programming. i had classes in school, as well, but the lion's share of the learning was just me doing my thing. by the time i dropped out of college i was pretty good, hence how i managed to land a job

what's interesting to me is that my identities regarding math and programming developed at the same time but developed so differently. i learned programming in a socially detached manner: i essentially never worked with anyone else (and even now i tend to work alone); i just taught myself stuff from online resources. what this meant was that there was no social structure for me to develop an anxiety within: with math, praise from a teacher could become need for validation, but with programming there was no teacher to praise me. hence with regards to the field of programming i find myself mostly free from anxiety and need for validation; it's always been primarily about the subject and it mostly continues to be this way (although lately that's been changing some)

---

that was a whole lot of text, containing perhaps more information than the reader was really interested in. to close i want to hone in on a few specific threads

the first regards praise. for me, repeated praise over a long period of time contributed to a neurotic identity complex, which caused me pain. contracted, praise gave rise to pain. praise is not necessarily a positive, constructive thing! saying "wow, you're so good at art" when you like someone's painting takes attention away from the act of doing art and moves it to the person. this is, dare i say, a Bad Thing. (praise isn't always bad, but it's subtle to get right)

i know i'm not the only person to think this. unfortunately, i haven't done research on the matter and can't point to any other specific person who agrees

the second thing i want to hone in on is making subjects "yours". there really is no right way to do math, or music, or art, or anything else, except perhaps something like classical music, which apparently actually does have Rules. i encourage you to take a class on some subject and then deviate from it: say, ah, what i'm being taught is wonderful, but i'd also like to try this other thing i just thought of. you can do that!

now, there's a bit of subtlety to doing this right. foremost, it's important to recognize that you are deviating. if you digress far enough from the forms you are being taught by your Tai Chi instructor, you might find that people call your new movements "not really Tai Chi". probably they're right! that's fine—it's not like Tai Chi is the one god-given way to move your body

respect that Tai Chi has been developing for hundreds of years and doubtless contains wisdom that you're totally blind to, and realize that you are still allowed to take your own experimentation seriously, treating it with respect, seeing it as valuable—not just for your development as a silly little student, but on its own, as a fresh and unique creative exploration