Mathematics, as defined on dictionary.com, is “the systematic treatment of magnitude, relationships between figures and forms, and relations between quantities expressed symbolically.”
Yes. I admit it. That sentence absolutely turns me on. Doesn’t that sound magnificent?! How about this one?
Mathematics (from Wikipedia) – “the abstract study of topics encompassing quantity, structure, space, change, and other properties; it has no generally accepted definition.”
Seriously? This is totally me! Have I been a closested mathematician my whole life? How could I have missed this in all my self-analysis?
(Continued from the Wikipedia entry)…”Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures.”
What the f#*% is a conjecture?
(After clicking the hyperlink)…”In mathematics, a conjecture is an unproven proposition that appears correct.”
Holy shit!!! I AM a mathematician…a social mathematician. There’s my new one-line answer to the question, “What is it exactly that you are doing?” My response, reserved for when I’m in the more intellectual circles…”Based on the patterns I’ve observed in myself & my life over the past 30 years, I have now formulated many new conjectures and I will be sharing them with the world.”
This actually makes perfect sense. I have loved math since I can remember. Organizing & analyzing are two of my favorite words in the English dictionary. My Dad is an accountant/CPA and so our childhoods were filled with numbers. When Dad would use the adding machine, we sat in awe of how fast his fingers moved over the numbered keys, without looking, and rarely with an error. People wonder where the obsession with quantifying, measuring, calculating, and logical & deductive reasoning comes from? That, my friends, is all courtesy of the numbers guy…the tax man…my Dad.
No joke…Saturday mornings, we would compute massive long division and multiplication problems. He would give us, for example, 2, 12-digit numbers that we would multiply by hand. Some of the problems took two or three sheets of paper. After calculating and watching Dad check our work step-by-step, we would beg for another one. My youngest brother must have picked up on these skills through some rare form of osmosis. Barely old enough to hold a kiddie-pencil, he was like a freaky little wizard. As the story goes, my mom would drive to school with Andrew in the back seat. She would ask him, “Andrew, how much is 1 quarter, 3 dimes, 2 nickels, and 4 pennies?” and the kid would get it right! He was 3!! My parents wonder why the three of us are the way we are today for what reason?
In all seriousness though, Mom & Dad earn the gold medal for teaching us fiscal responsibility and providing us with amazing discipline regarding our finances. The rule was, EVERY dollar we earned or were given was split 50/50 between ‘savings’ and ‘spendings’ – the two accounts we each had by the time we were two years old. ALL money was split – even Christmas and birthday gifts of money. Once we turned 18, the split was no longer “required” but greatly encouraged. All 3 of us each had over $10,000 in savings by the end of high school. My brothers, to this day, frugal beyond the definition, had almost double this for they didn’t spend a dime on anything…ever. One, in fact, opened his first IRA before he was 18. In our home, in more ways than one, we absolutely learned what I feel is one of the most important lessons in life…the value of a dollar.
Ah…the subject of money. As we all know, along with religion and politics, an almost guaranteed feather-ruffling topic to broach. However, if you can’t have honest, mature conversations about some of the most challenging things facing our society at present, can you really expect to ever “solve” the problems associated with them?
One of my favorite quotes is from Einstein…”You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew.” My move to Sarasota in 2008 was the beginning of a 2-year period where I most certainly began to see the world anew. Specifically, and particularly, as it pertains to economic value and what in our society has it and what doesn’t. And I am talking actual, monetary value. In the current paradigm in which we are living, what has been determined to have actual financial value and what hasn’t? Who has made these determinations? And is it not completely arbitrary what was decided?
Let’s take home ownership as an example. Having a home mortgage for even a relatively “small” amount – $100,000 – is completely acceptable for debt. Yet, accruing credit card debt for even 1/4 of that amount is frowned upon & labeled as “irresponsible” & “risky” by society – even if “society” has no knowledge or understanding of what that $$ is being used for. How about the amount of financial leverage a homeowner has with options like a home equity loan or a refinancing of one’s home? With relative ease, homeowners have the ability to acquire significant sums of money to then invest in something that is of value to them. If you make the conscious decision, then, to NOT own a home, you have no equal opportunity for receiving such relatively easy-to-obtain money with which to then invest in what you value.
By logical extension, does this reality not indicate that those who own homes are valued “higher” than those who don’t? And why should this be the case? Simply because a “group” (most likely to have been white men) 60+ years ago arbitrarily decided for EVERYONE that the American dream was to own a home? Then, this same “group” made the decision to have housing policies that flat-out discriminated against certain races of people preventing them right off the bat from having the same life opportunities. This is not opinion. This is fact.
I didn’t know any of these facts until 2011. While home in MI for my “year off from the world”, I volunteered with an incredible organization in the city of Detroit called The Generation of Promise. I was assisting with the preparation for one of their monthly activities and was editing portions of a documentary that was going to be shown. I was aghast at what I was watching/hearing. I was born and raised in and around the city of Detroit and I never learned these extremely valuable, local, historical facts until I was 35 years old?!
How can one learn of something like this and not look at the issue of race in this country (or at least in Detroit) with an entirely new perspective? I don’t care on which side of the political fence you stand. There is no LOGICAL way to explain how this COULD NOT have drastically affected things. And how about this for thought. Why, in the schools in and around the city of (substitute ANY AND EVERY city) do we not have at least one required class a year on the history of the city in which we live? Would that not make a ton more sense to study than say, the Civil War? The consequences of the Civil War are NOT what we are living today. In Detroit, in the 80s when I began school, we were living in a city dealing with the consequences of the 60s!! If the main purpose of our schools is to create “good citizens” would you not think it important to have your citizens know the most recent history of their city so as to best be able to offer suggestions & solutions that may actually have a chance to work?
TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW…
Dedicated to my Dad. Tomorrow, the detailed version.
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