What is a Mathematician, Really?

I adopt the title from Hersh's book, "What is Mathematics, Really?" I found the book in the math library when I was an undergrad and since I like the book so much, I bought it when I was taking my PhD in a subject that has nothing to do with math, or so I thought. I think my learning process is always about finding meaning. If I didn't get why I should do a particular subject, my grades would just fall down the drain. That's why I changed my subject from abstract mathematics to social science. Along the way, I re-learned statistics and programming again as part of my research and somehow, I realized that the way I am attracted towards math is part of a bigger attraction, pattern.

Mathematics is a form of pattern and since it works through definition, I can have one of the purest form of pattern. When I was an undergrad, my final project was about the convergence of Lax-Friedrichs scheme in approaching a continuous formula with partial differential equation. The author of the main paper that I built my final project from is a woman. So reading about her kind of me motivated me to keep going (after being told by my supervisor). I did the same for Calculus, I finished reading all the mathematicians stories that start each chapter in Purcell's book.

My training kind of shaped the way I approached social science. I like to create a social model by defining the rules first. It's like creating a natural number or a space. The way we understand the world is through a lens or a framework. It allows us to become sensitive to different things, depends on the lens. At the same time, failure in understanding the lens also means failure in what it disallow us to see. In math, I see this as a form of transformation where one space may be more effective in solving one problem than the other. We can only say this once we understand the space we are working in. In social science, it's less clear than math and therefore, many people may not see it as an epistemological problem. They confuse truth with situated knowledge.

Movie Marathon

I have been doing a kind of movie marathon and all of them end up with either suicide, break up and regret. They have romance genre as their category but none of them end with a happy ending. Probably, happy ending is not a thing anymore. It's better to leave the movie with an open ending and let the audiences decide the meaning of it. As Barthes said, "the author is dead." On the bright side, it's nice to see that even a fiction has a complicated narrative as in real life. Nothing is really black and white since everyone has their own background that makes them who they are.

Somehow, I think that's what a relationship is. It's not a matter on finding the best person but how two persons are able to fit each other's life into a shared routine. The movie where the male character kill himself is a story about depression. The main characters met for the first time at the bridge when the female was standing on top of the bridge ready to jump after she lost her sister in a car accident. The story is narrated from the female character where her interaction with him enabled her to deal with her depression until she realized there was something off with the male character. And at the end, the movie shows that her feeling was right, the male character ended his life.

I think that's how life is, there are moments where you meet someone for a particular reason. The person won't be part of your life but his/her presence in a fraction of your life helps in making you a better person. That's how the Universe protects and directs you.

Unsent Letter

Hey, how are you? I miss you. I know I don't have the right to say that anymore especially since I was the one who pulled the trigger. We broke up twice. Although I kind of not regretting the first one since that was the first time I really believe that you had feeling for me. While I like how we could spend time without talking sometimes I was wondering what you were thinking and the first broke up was the first time I saw your emotion. I think you and I were quite similar in this matter, we did not really like to show our emotion or even used it since it would make us or human in general vulnerable and we chose to be a logical creature.

It's strange that during this weird situation you are the one who crossed my mind. Probably because what you said about not looking for someone kind of ring a bell for me now. The energy to hold a conversation or to open up is just too much. At the same time, it is also nice to have someone who you can talk to without having to pretend anything. And I miss that about you ... or maybe my idealization of you. Since imagination is always better since it does not happen. Reality has frictions and sometimes memory will only leave you with the good bits.

Time

One of the things that attached to routine is time. If I usually distribute my time following my office life, now I have no time division. I can pray, eat and work without taking a shower, which lead to a limbo feeling of being in between relaxing and working modes. It also makes me reflect more on the meaning of time and how Islam describes it beautifully in the surah Al-Asr (1-3).

By time, Indeed, mankind is in loss, Except for those who have believed and done righteous deeds and advised each other to truth and advised each other to patience.

At the end, our value in the world is evaluated based on how we deal with the reality. As Allah SWT has promised, “Surely, Allah is with those who are As‑Saabiroon (the patient)” [al-Anfaal 8:46]

April

I will try to write regularly again. One thing I realize about working from home is the lack of boundary. Usually, I start my day with breakfast, reading some news or comics, taking shower and heading off to the office. But now it does not really matter if I take a shower or not or whether I change my cloths for days or not. There were still meeting in between, but as long as I dress up, the rest is kind of okay. So today I started running and after taking care of my physical health, it is good to take care of mental health by writing. I forget when (or why) I stopped writing regularly. It feels nice to be reflective again and re-thinking about what I want in life. My friend who I met in 2012 said that my life does not go anywhere. My confusion about what I want in life is similar to what I complained to him in 2014. Probably, I fall into one of Einstein's dream spaces where I keep on repeating the same routine over and over, a space where life is a sum of repeated events.

I also want to detach my life from my phone. I will combine my work with more readings and writing without internet connection. Probably walking to the park is also a nice distraction to be motivated again. Just like the old time when my friends I got bored at the afternoon and we had this nice walk around the campus. I miss Europe's nature and since I can do nothing about that I should just focus on what I can do to create the new comfort zone.

Dis/Connected

It's strange that during this working from home period I became more connected than ever. There were no days without meetings. Group meetings, reading group, discussions with student, writing session and weekly meeting. The great thing about group meeting in person is that you can disappear in the background whereas in this whole mediated connection, the device will make you the center of attention once you talk. Maybe this period allows us to focus and to listen to one thing instead of doing multiple things at once.

The staying at home reminds me on the time when I was in Enschede. Christmas period, snowy and no obligation to go outside. No close friends since I was just arrived from Indonesia. But I kind of enjoy the quietness of cold, snow and being alone. There was a lake next to my lake that I used to visit. I was quite productive as well during that period. Probably because that's the type of quite that I like, nature, no email, no human on the street. 

Ten years apart. New place, new continent, new break ups.  

The New Normal

I am still finding my way to the new normal. I worked during weekend and I went to the supermarket in Monday. Everyday becomes a mesh of working and holiday. When I watch movie, I remember work and when I work, I want to escape to do fun things since I haven't had a proper break. Probably, I should start running in the morning, take shower and start to work instead of reading in the morning and feel unmotivated at 10 AM. With the whole lockdown thing, I become more connected to my phone. Usually I only need to charge it once per day, however, during this stay at home period, I charge it three times per day. Crazy!

I have borrowed several books from the library. Probably, it is also good to read in the park instead of staying inside all the time. So, it is either park for running or for reading or for cat chasing. The last one sounds fun :-)

Sunflower

How to keep my face straight
When you looked me with that smile
Our colleagues just passed by without a hey
Since me eyes were distance, locked to where you stood

"Hey," you said
The rest was blurry
As this memory will be

Expectation

“It would have been better to come back at the same hour,” said the fox. ... "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am!" -- Fox to the Little Prince, Saint-Exupery.

There is a strange connection between sense of belonging and routines. Even when things feel weird, you start to miss something once it becomes part of your routine. You have the agency to do different things but you end up doing the same thing over and over because that's how you define yourself. I think that's why it is easier to accept a new person when you are younger, your movement are being shaped by the years you spent together. Once you are getting older, you have years of moving by yourself, synchronizing your steps with another may take more effort. But as time pass by, you start to wonder whether this is what you want or not.

This is the part where you create a space of expectation. You create an idea of what you want but it's still not part of your physical world. Expectation is part of an imaginary world where you mix part of the reality with what you expect to be the truth. You feel happy not because of the reality but of a hope blanket you put around the reality. The key for this expectation to last is a constant supply of part of the reality. You still need an external trigger, which is the basic ingredient for your expectation.

The question is if you are super skeptical about love, why you only allow certain people to enter, why not increasing the chance of never being alone by having parallel relationships? Apart from moral consideration, relationship takes energy i.e. memory for remembering all the details and not mixing their stories, time, emotion, so at the end, the cost for energy is higher than the risk of being alone. At the end, you have to put yourself out there and wish your brain still working until expectation and reality become saturated.   

The Social

Being in a social distancing period made me wonder about life. What I consider as important, who would I connect with during the period, why things happen as it is and what do I want to do in life. Having someone new kind of supporting the whole reflective thing. I still don't know where this relationship is going to end but for now, I am happy with the way it goes. Me being happy in a relationship is kind of rare, at least for the last two years. The social kind of aspect me to behave in a certain way, which does not really fit with my own character. I have to deal with people who talk about themselves without paying attention about my facial expression or people who do not really know what they want. There are not bad guys, they just hold the wrong piece of the puzzle, which may fit with somebody else.

As a social creature, I am what my past shapes me. As the smallest in the family, I use to have people doing things or protecting me. I remember when I was in junior high school, I had to find my socks 15 minutes before the bell ring and the whole house was being involved in finding my socks, or eraser or my homework. The situation remained until I got my PhD. Sometimes I told my supervisor that I wanted to tag along with him since I did not have anything to do at home. I also have senior professor who I consider more as an grand parents than something professional. I like to be taking care of or having someone who I can talk with about random subject.

Probably, having a degree makes me a weird one, especially when people consider man has to be above woman or because I lived quite some time abroad. Maybe, I am just being sensitive but after a while, I can really feel the difference once people know about my attribute. It becomes tiresome when people look at you for your degree and not the whole you. Well, attributes are part of your identity, but every person has more than one dimension. Herbert Marcus wrote a book called 'One-dimensional man', where he (probably) discusses about a shift in the Soviet Union to consumerism. I have not read this book, I read his other book 'Siddharta' though where he told a story about the possibility of having no expectation.

I like the idea of having no expectation. If you never hope something, you will never be disappointed. I could not be gloomier than that, right? While it does sound gloomy, practicing it in daily life is kind of liberating. I think that's how I approach my current relationship, que sera sera. I don't want to rush thing as well as forcing something that I don't want to do (i.e excepting calls from strangers or from people I am not close to).

It takes the whole past to bring me to this point, a series of events that make you, you.

PS: talking about series of events remind me of doing partial differential equation where you talking A LOT about subset and space.

Kaila

"Dimas ..."
"Eh Kaila, kok bisa ada di sini?"
"Aku lagi bantu bosku, kebetulan dia jadi salah satu penanggungjawab di seminar ini. Nice to see you again."
"Likewise, I like to catch up with you later. Sekarang aku harus beresin ini dulu," ucap Dimas sambil membawa beberapa poster.
"Sure, see you later Mas."

Kaila menarik napas lega. Ia tak tahu berapa lama ia bisa menjaga wajahnya tersenyum tanpa rasa canggung. Pertemuan terakhir mereka di Jakarta tak berjalan lancar dan sekarang mereka bertemu lagi di Paris, kota yang selalu jadi pelarian Kaila tiap kali ia penat dengan kesehariannya di Belanda.