I turned 55 today and my records show that I have been “doing mathematics” daily for the last 709 days. Although you need not do the exact same thing, what are some of the things about my slightly unusual hobby that might be useful for your own interests so that you might have a different and better life? What I have to say today might even make you more money or help you get to what you consider to be heaven. That, you will have to find out over time.

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Contents

Why should you bother reading this?
1234It is NOT about Mathematics
The Journey for me…
1234…in the Beginning
1234…has No End
Why do it every day?
Muscles and Mathematics
1234Interconnectedness
1234Consistency
1234Patience
1234Wrestling
1234Timeout between Rounds
1234Defeating other Opponents
1234Curating in Complexity
1234Proximity to Gold
Connection to Youth
Staying away from Mischief
Connections to Others
Running and Mathematics
Spirituality and Mathematics
Tracking
Parting Message

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Why should you bother reading this? [top]

The adults I speak to are often living their lives far from what they think is their dream life. If they are not giving away endless hours building someone else’s dream, then they are building something that they think is going to, one day, give them freedom and the life of their dreams. All of that would be fine if there was an appropriate balance. Most of us are not doing the simple things we did in our carefree student years that gave us pleasure – be it creating music, art, dancing, playing sports, or wrestling with mathematics. They were activities that gave us pleasure with the pain associated with effort. Not the kind of pleasure that leads to diseases of the mind or body for so many of us today.

How can we change things for the better? Wouldn’t it be better if every day starting with today was like living a dream life?

It is NOT about Mathematics [top]

For almost a decade I have been saying that you need not run to be superfit. As you are an adult, such is the case for doing mathematics too. You need not do mathematics for the various benefits I talk about today. You might get them from something else in your life. So then why might you start such a journey? Why might you keep walking the path? And, what benefits might you start to observe that then keep you on that path?

Think about a current hobby you engage in and ask to what extent there is a similarity with what I say below.

The Journey for me… [top]

Every journey has a beginning, even if no obvious or important end. Destinations can be great for journeys, but for many of them, the journey itself is what we should do it for.

…in the Beginning [top]

Not a talented mathematician by any stretch of the imagination, I was good at school mathematics once I understood the fundamentals of a topic. Often with the highest marks in a class test or exam, I never really struggled with the subject. However, when I studied engineering, the mathematics was “more applied” and “not pure” and the same thing was true when I trained in England to become a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries, and then again, a little later when I worked on my PhD in Finance.

More recently, after my daughter went to university to study physics and then my son, to study mathematics, I decided it might be good to finally satisfy my curiosity and find out the answer to – “What do mathematicians really do?”

That decision was 2 years ago.

…has No End [top]

With only a tiny step forward taken every day now, I see there is no real end to my mathematical journey. Yet, every day, the view I have of the world is given a small tweak. The curiosity in the original question “What do mathematicians really do?” did not take long to satisfy but now the daily walk is for something else. That is much like someone dreaming of seeing Paris from the Eiffel Tower but having done so finally for an hour one day, they extract even more joy from the many more hours of wandering curiously on the many streets of Paris.

As a lifelong learner, the fact that mathematics seems so vast makes me happy that “I will never run out of things to learn.”

Could you, similarly, wander through the magical streets of a beautifully planned town? For me, it is mathematics now. Would it be art for you? Or history? Or chemistry?

Why do it every day? [top]

When we clean our mouths and teeth many times a day, it is to prevent physical decay and emotional distress. It is not for such insurance against future pain that I do mathematics every day. I do it for the pleasure it gives me in the present. That is not to say that it is without pain. But pain and pleasure are not opposites of each other. The voluntary pain that you inflict on yourself when at the gym is very different from the involuntary pain that you feel when you get smacked in the head by diseases because of leading a poor lifestyle.

I have not kept track of the amount of time I invest in daily mathematics. My educated guess, however, is that I invest as much time in doing mathematics as I invest in the project I call “doing what it takes to have all my own teeth at 100”.

What are you doing every day that will make you smile at 100?

Muscles and Mathematics [top]

I have not engaged a teacher to do mathematics. The daily work is around self-learning using material that smarter people have put together for us. The material we engage with in mathematics has its origins in Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, with more foundations laid in India, China, ancient Rome, and Greece, with significant additions from Arabia and, more recently, Europe and other parts of the world. Standing on the shoulders of giants, we build our own muscles when we do the work ourselves. Although the physical muscles get no training when doing mathematics, the mental and emotional musculature inside us do.

Let us examine those muscular systems and see how they grow bigger and stronger through a hobby like mathematics.

Interconnectedness – You will hear me say often that “everything is interconnected.” It is not a glib statement. Though institutions try to slice and dice to separate and then control, interconnectedness is a fact that cannot vanish. When you meditate for 10 minutes before you eat your meal, there are countless interconnected parts that work in your favour, at that time and after that time. [top]

Will you see the interconnectedness of the many ideas in this article? Do you see how your hobby is connected to many other parts of your day? Is it a synergistic or symbiotic relationship?

Consistency – The process of engaging with something with the aim of getting better is a personal philosophy that we ought to live out every day. In my case, mathematics is one of the many things I do as a Consistency Conqueror. The university-level mathematics that I do pushes my knowledge a little bit daily in a tiny segment of the vast body of human knowledge. The exercises I do, and now I know why the book calls them “exercises,” always have me pushing against some resistance. If we could create a boundary wall between what we know and what we do not know, between what we understand and what we do not understand, it would probably be a convoluted but short boundary wall. That reflects how little we know of all that is out there. I enjoy the process of knocking away patiently and pushing that stretchable boundary wall back by an inch every day. There is no destination for me. No exam deadline. No graduation date. There are no homework deadlines even! I do as little or as much as I feel is appropriate each day. But each day it is. The Conquering is of Consistency – not some external object, not even a certificate of accomplishment. [top]

What good habits are you consistent with?

Patience – An important muscle that gets trained is “the patience muscle” – a muscle whose strength is critical for living a life of joy. Some things just take longer than others. Although an external authority may stipulate that something must be learned by a certain date, the individual variation in learning rates can be vast. If a topic that is taught in one semester at university takes me 2 years to get some mastery over, I am OK with it. Mastery over that topic is not what is key. Instead, mastery over the tenacity required to achieve mastery in anything is what I am training for. Mathematics is just a method for that.

If you have not been through parenthood to become more patient – could your chosen hobby provide that opportunity? Do you have the patience to identify such a hobby? [top]

Wrestling – Mathematics is wrestling – with one’s own mind, in one’s own mind. As with wrestling an opponent on a mat, it can take many attempts until you are able to have them under control and pin them down. I observe myself doing that with mathematics. Having read the fundamentals of a topic, the only way to test true understanding is to solve problems. Usually, the question I am trying to answer on that topic has a printed solution by the author that can be looked at. However, with no referee to blow a whistle and shout, “Your time is up,” I can wrestle away until I win. There is no need to look at the benchmark solution until I too have a solution that I have constructed myself.

Would you like to wrestle and be able to not give up until you have won? [top]

Timeout between Rounds – When wrestling with a problem, I give myself full permission to hit the pause button and return to the same question where I paused the day before. That next session is with the benefit of an additional night’s sleep for my wrestling machinery (brain) to further process information about the opponent and try again to win. Observing how the passage of time with the overnight sleep magically gives me the ability to win that round of wrestling is extremely empowering.

As a result of your hobby, do you experience your brain forming new connections between one session and the next? Is there really a limit to how much you can learn? Are you the one who placed a limit on how much you can learn? [top]

Defeating other Opponents – Patients regularly come to me with problems that their doctors have told them have no cure, and that they must live with just managing the symptoms. When I work with such patients, they soon realize that I will not give up until we get to the root cause of their health problems. We work towards a cure instead of accepting that treatment is all we must settle for. This tenacity exists because of a long list of experiences of winning unstructured battles. Knowing that a solution exists implies that there is just one thing that stands between where you are now and a solution – the bridge of willingness to keep trying.

How is your hobby training you to separate fact from fiction? Can it get you to see quickly what is a fact versus merely your opinion? If it is a fact that a solution to your problem exists, does your hobby train you to not give up the search for a solution? [top]

Curating in Complexity – Not being rushed, and allowing for the necessary passage of time leads to the ability to find a correct solution in mathematics. This translates to developing the habit and ability to curate better solutions for complex problems in life. The first impulsive or intuitive answer is often not the best one. Although your hobby may not involve others, the deliberate slowing down to see more clearly can help you navigate complexity around other humans and new situations.

What starts off appearing complex and “Jeez, that’s too complicated for me” can always be broken down into incredibly simple and logical tiny steps. Logical walkable steps. An implementable solution. You and I may nod our heads at what I just said, but we only appreciate it when we experience it first-hand, repeatedly.

Do you try to run away from complexity? Does your hobby train you to curate better solutions to complex problems? [top]

Proximity to Gold – Do you have moments when your intuition tells you that you are on the right track and you just need to keep at it because the fog will clear and the landscape will become crisp for your eyes to see? You believe that you will see more depth, more breadth and with greater detail. It is, thus, worthwhile to develop the instinct to know when you are close to a good solution or far from it.

When you are wandering in the dark, do you know how far you are from the light switch? If there is a nugget of gold under one of the rocks, do you know if it is that very next rock that might be hiding that bit of gold? [top]

Connection to Youth [top]

As a boy, I learned to wrestle with other boys – because that is what boys do! As a boy, I also studied mathematics in school with other boys and girls. I tutored youngsters in mathematics for many years even when I did not need the extra income. When I do mathematics, perhaps, a part of my brain associates it with “being young” and that association gives me a joyful incentive!

In school, we also learned to knit but foolishly thought of it as being an old lady’s activity. Can we avoid the same mistake later in life and see that mathematics and mountaineering can be done by chronologically elderly men and women too? Then that is what might keep them biologically young!

Staying away from Mischief [top]

With so many self-development projects on the go, I have no time left in the day for mischief. This is despite having made a conscious decision to not watch televised sports 33 years ago. And despite not consuming news that others want me to follow. By not allowing my time to get devoured by low-value pursuits, I open possibilities to focus on what affects my states of joy in the purest sense. Endless shopping, being a couch potato in front of a football game, eating in fancy restaurants with objectionable prices – they do not feature in my utility function. I have considerable mastery over my utility function!

Connections to Others [top]

Because the mathematics I currently do is only undergraduate level, it is typically many hundred years old and so connections are to famous mathematicians who are long gone. Once every few months, when I cannot agree with the benchmark answer provided for a question, I reach out to a friend who is a professor of mathematics in Greece. My “doing mathematics” is a private hobby, and even he did not know until 2 days ago why it was that I popped up once every few months requesting clarification or explanation about some problem. He finally asked why I was doing mathematics – I will request him to read this article for the answer.

To what extent does your hobby require others to show up? Is it good to be dependent on others for a hobby?

Running and Mathematics [top]

I often joke that I do not enjoy running because I am more of a sedentary computer geek than a workhorse. When it comes to running, or any other workout, it is difficult and probably unnecessary to separately identify the extent of joy I get from doing the activity itself versus the extent of joy that originates from the knowledge that I am doing something that is good for me. What I do know is that I run because it is a time and resource-efficient method to have the health benefits of running. With very little additional time required on either side of a run, it allows me more time to do mathematics or the many other personal projects in my life.

As with running, the way I do mathematics is time efficient too. Most days I pull out the book I write mathematics in and do what feels sufficient for that day. Often, I just load up the latest problem into my brain and then try to think it through with eyes-closed-visualization just before I sleep. Or when I am heading out for an unhurried walk, I enjoy focusing away from the distractions of traffic by thinking about the mathematics problem at hand.

Can your hobby be done efficiently? Or is it so cumbersome to arrange each time that, eventually you give up after many days? What can you do to not give up?

Spirituality and Mathematics [top]

I wrote a short unpublished piece on “The connection between spirituality and mathematics” which is irrelevant to why I do mathematics daily. The question relevant to today’s topic is “Does doing mathematics daily increase spiritual wealth?”

I do not think there is anything special about doing mathematics for spiritual growth that makes it unique. However, the practice of having to deliberately pause to understand, to pause to internalize, to pause to reflect and then be able to implement our understanding with great mindfulness – they are all skills we need to develop in the physical, mental, and emotional dimensions to, hopefully, achieve, but with no guarantee, an increase in spiritual wealth.

Tracking [top]

As with all the other hobbies and activities I engage in, I write a short journal entry for my mathematics every day. This forces me to reflect on the process of “doing” mathematics.

For your hobby, do you keep track of your progress? Does it help you with staying on track and making further progress?

Parting Message [top]

For many years, in my youth, I made money enjoying being a private tutor in mathematics. Then for 3 decades, I used mathematical thinking and computer programming to earn a little bit of money as a professional in the finance industry and financial markets. Today I am enjoying teaching myself mathematics with no direct connection to external wealth. It is a private activity that feels like a journey around the universe without leaving home. I am 55 today and hope that when I am 110, I will still be doing mathematics.

If everything you do is consistent with your core beliefs and desires, then a long and healthy life of joy is pretty much guaranteed to be yours. If you want to be guided in detail, you know how to reach me, and if you found this useful, please do share it with others.

Puru

Dr Purnendu Nath spends his waking hours focusing on helping individuals and organizations reach their goals, to make the world a better place. He speaks, writes and advises on topics such as finance, investment management, discipline, education, self-improvement, exercise, nutrition, health and fitness, leadership and parenting.