A man once asked me why anyone should do mathematics. I asked him why anyone should write poetry.
During my early twenties, my primary concern was making a living. It’s why I went into software engineering. It took a decade, but I was eventually able to build a career and get paid well enough to start thinking about things other than earning money.
This led me back to mathematics. Like a moth to a flame, I couldn’t help myself. It wasn’t practical. In some ways, it felt like a distraction from the work that had moved my life forward. But math was my first love. I had left it behind because I couldn’t see how it would fit into my life.
I talked to a man who is now a treasured friend and mentor. He advised me, “The pull toward mathematics that you feel is unlikely to ever go away. You’re always going to be drawn to this.”
He was correct, and I had finally reached a point where mathematics slotted nicely into my life. I yielded to my own nature and decided it was time to pursue what I had set down so long ago.
I have often tried to explain to people what makes mathematics so special. I’ve talked about beauty, abstraction, and how ideas connect in eerie ways. But somehow my words have always fallen short. I can’t help but feel amused by the irony: I insist mathematics is poetry, yet I cannot find the words for it.