Since I finished graduate school five decades ago I have often taken classes—with private teachers, at community colleges, and through local groups. With only one exception (to prepare for the professional engineering exam in the 70s when I was still considering working as an engineer), my reason for taking the classes has been for pleasure and mental stimulation—to learn something new as well as to reacquaint myself with things I encountered in school long ago. The area in which I have studied the most is Spanish, and I still meet occasionally with a private teacher to improve my ability at the language.
I recently took “Accelerated Pre-calculus” at the local community college. As an engineering student in the late 60s, I took a similar class my first semester of college. Back then I enjoyed math and had a gift for it, and I took many more advanced math classes over the next six years. That was more than fifty years ago, however. Since then I had hardly done any math more complicated than simple arithmetic, and I had forgotten much, my quantitative abilities having grown rusty from disuse. I chose pre-calculus as a way to brush the dust off of my math knowledge and to see if my attitude toward math had changed over the years. Although I did fine academically in the class, I had to work at it, and in many ways I felt as though I was learning the subject for the first time rather than merely reviewing it.
When I took math in college, I was studying mechanical engineering, which I thought would be my profession, the way I would engage the world through work. Math was a fundamental part of my preparation to become an engineer, and it was a good fit for my interests and abilities back then. After I graduated and worked for a year or two, however, I concluded that I did not want to be an engineer and left the profession.
Taking math this time was different in a fundamental way than when I was a college student. Being retired, I no longer have any profession with which I identify and for which I need prerequisites like math. Having shed the restriction of profession I feel freer to be myself and to follow my heart rather than a specified educational path leading to a career.
The pre-calculus class was interesting and stimulating, with a talented and caring teacher. Moreover, I enjoyed applying my intellect to concepts I had long forgotten. I initially considered taking calculus next because it is the logical continuation of pre-calculus. I doubt I will, however, not because calculus doesn’t appeal to me or because I think it would be too difficult. While math is intellectually stimulating, I lack the interest in it I had in my teens and early twenties.
A more important factor is an increasing sense that life is zero-sum. By that I mean that I have only a limited time to live, so I must allocate my time carefully. After all, as I wrote in the very first post on this blog in 2017 (https://turn-stone.com/an-equation-of-time/), time and life form an identity, i.e., time equals life. Life is finite and is measured in time—hours, days, weeks, years, etc. Thus, when I use a certain amount of time for one thing, I don’t have that time for something else. Since I am in my 70s, the time I have remaining is only a fraction of what it was when I was in college studying engineering. Time is precious and not to be used carelessly, spent without thought, and above all killed.
In allocating my time, I seek pursuits that give me skills to participate more fully in the world. For example, Spanish offers opportunities to communicate with others in their own language as well as improve my ability in English—likewise for another language or travel. Through photography I am able to become more aware of and interpret my surroundings. Exploring an area such as mycology or geology would enhance my ability to better understand and place myself more fully in the natural world. Writing, above all, has become increasingly important to me in the past few years as a way to explore life, understand myself and connect with others.
Although I like the rigor, structure, and challenge of math, it does not offer that same potential. An ability to use logarithms, parse trigonometric identities, or apply differential calculus is satisfying and intellectually stimulating, but it does not do much to connect me with other people or engage the world.