August 15, 2023
When I was in school, I couldn’t wait to get to summer vacation. Long warm days and no structure: a two-month escape from concrete-walled monotony.
Summer break would roll around, and I would be bored out of my mind: cycling through browser tabs, making my way through my newly gifted workbooks and taking laps around the neighbourhood on my bike. Who knew being at home with all this "free time" could feel so punitive?
I got older and once again I was saddled with this "free time," but "punitive" is nowhere near the word I would use to describe it.
Cycling through tabs felt like a reward. I went down rabbit holes, wrote whatever I wanted, did whatever I wanted. Most of this time was "unproductive." But, it didn't feel wrong.
There's a stronger notion now that higher education is of diminishing value, and although it may be true: the case in which it is, is too narrowly portrayed.
Environments with other students with people who are literally paid to do research and teach you are not as concentrated anywhere else. Incentives are indeed misaligned with getting every ounce of knowledge possible out of your local experts. But a spirit of erudition, whether acted upon or not, is no small thing.
There are these different modes of academic socialism that sometimes embody this spirit (much) better. In 18th century France, there were these things called salons, mainly for women; they would gather and discuss literature, politics, science and other topics.
At these organized events, attendees were expected to share their views, and as such, they became a breeding ground for new social thought.
In a relatively feudal society, going to these was a demonstration of class, so tending to your thoughts about the world was high status.
Your invitation was at the mercy of a salonniére who constructed the guest list. Beyond opinion sharing and social prestige, what did you have to gain from going? It would make you a better mother; after all, this was the main sentiment that went into letting women attend university.
Their right to attend was granted in the 19th century, but until then, salons were an imperfect alternative. I mention how Shelley went from peak enlightened to romantic after marrying Mary Shelley, and it's interesting how some of the more famous salons were attended by the wives of the classic great thinkers; what novel thought did they inspire, perhaps create, with much less recognition? Sophie de Condorcet—the wife of Marquis de Condorcet; Madame Necker, Swiss governess and wife of Jacques Necker; Madame Swetchine - the wife of General Swetchine; the list goes on...
Regardless there are some motivations here that feel pure and offer a sense of what I'm trying to capture. This semi-virtuous pursuance of truth.
I'm tempted to dismiss caring by comparing this to book club among stay-at-home moms (which still proves to capture the same spirit), but I guess a historic lens makes this feel more grand.
A Mathematician's Lament acts as vindication for the technical who feel let down by traditional education - which sometimes feels like everyone.
It's a cry against what math pedagogy has become. Reducing a method of expression to a set of rules to learn, some call it art, to be churned out at a test's notice. I need to get that 1600, I need to complete this prerequisite for my CS major, and I need to do something 'hard' because it's helpful to do something else that I actually find cool.
There's beauty here that drives relentlessness. It's one thing to be pushed into math by your parents, it's another thing to want to channel your intellectual competitiveness, and it's another thing to see actual beauty in deriving proofs and solving geometry problems: beyond the honourable grind. It's hard for me to truly understand because I'll describe myself as the type of student that Lockhart describes, but I acknowledge the existence of mathematical aesthetes, and it's cute, desirable even.
It's also a semi-communal act. At the top of whatever the institution is, I guess there's less cooperation, but there is a social component. Training camps manicure some of it, but outside of weeks-long programs, it feels somewhat central to their identity that you come across a cool problem, show it to your friend, and take a crack at it. I don't know, I think this is stretching the nobility a bit too far.
Regardless, there exist different modes of socialism. I recently saw on Instagram this post about kids and their "parallel play". You just have your buddy sitting beside you: you're finishing a puzzle, and she's making some weird creation with Play-doh and life's swell.
Arguably because of you're adorably unwrinkled brain, this form of play counts as some kind of learning, and the fact and way you play with someone makes it a form of socialism. Academic socialism.
Someone asked about a subject I couldn’t get into and I said Art History. I thought back to elementary school trips where I would lose attention staring at the canvasses in front of me, inattentive. Painted works mean at least a little more to me now—the process of creating something beautiful. Sensory satisfaction of a paint-filled brush on paper, textured strokes, a cohesive image to look at when it’s all done. But to appreciate something I didn’t make, I tap into my limited experience, a narrative I make of their experience.
What's the story behind the piece? German romantic works are an extension of this. Fétichisme of trauma by arbitrarily making the object form into an almost sensual experience.
To do this, it takes brain power; unnatural? But I do it anyways, I do it more, and I want to. It goes beyond trying to be the type of person to appreciate it, or at least I hope it will.
Continuing on the mathematics thread. I think about June Huh—Field's medallist who was angsty and edgy and rose to mathematical excellence.
In going to academic things beyond anything school-related. In almost all of these events and programs: a common thread was the level of excitement about intellectualism that was bestowed on me. My Twitter feed embeds the feeling of "I have to," but these environments made it feel like it was cool to be like this, and I want to be cool.
Something I've been trying to come to thoughts about is in regards to this whole idea of "death with conviction." It started from reading the biography of "Aaron Schwartz" who lived by his stance on rights to information. He worked on projects that aligned with this and although the ending of his life is unfortunate: he had personal ties to his work that most don't, a life spent in pursuit of an aim that he truly believed in - or so we assume.
At the Interact retreat, there were many talks, panels, etc., as the un-conference structure would make you expect. We had a formal guest (speaker)—Thomas Khalil—the Chief Innovation Officer at Schmidt Futures. It's a common thing where someone on the older side, invited as a guest speaker and presented with accolades will be applauded for whatever they say. But, he had genuinely interesting things to say, especially interesting anecdotes: working in both the Biden and Obama Administrations and having his mind-picked on his impressive code-switching and windy career path that he can still speak of with coherence.
It was delightfully eloquent and applicable to the wide range of backgrounds that were present but still ticklishly vague about the nitty-gritty of what it looks like to get things done: not how to muster up the motivation, not the frameworks you need to tackle problems, not the social prowess you can embody by engaging with humanity in a deeply emotional way. The emails that you have to send, the forming of a problem and what it looks like to actually send that to relevant stakeholders, what it actually means to be a staffer to the chair of the Semiconductor Industry Association overlooking Japanese-US affairs.
However, I don't think it's a matter of the speaker necessarily diluting or dumbing down their efforts for the sake of a talk but the actual way in which they view their journey.
The makers of the Oppenheimer movie tried to give the nitty-gritty, and many folks said it wasn't good. We want emotional arcs, not technical ones; it's what others remember; it's what we remember in recalling our own stories.
If you're applying for graduate school programs, you get in. You've applied with some idea of what you might work on, but you sure as hell don't know the exact topic of your thesis (most likely). You've applied for the journey, the emotionality, the virtue, the romance.
My relationship with something like sheer curiosity is young and naive, but there's something here. It's the reason why academics awarded with prizes tend to be less productive, the escape from "ambitious" environments feels so freeing, and an open-ended research project sometimes feels like stepping out into fresh air or having your head pushed down a dark tunnel that you know may never end. To play...productively.