At the end of my undergraduate career, I found a paint-your-own-pottery place. Rather than go to my graduation, I went to the paint-your-own-pottery place and painted some plates. Leaving afterwards, I was euphoric. It felt like I hadn’t done anything creative in five years, which, other than math, I hadn’t.
The end of undergrad was ten years ago. I’ve been writing full-time for two years now. Last month, I downloaded a logic game for the iPad with over five thousand puzzles in it and I play it constantly, staying awake to do the next puzzle, then the next one, then the next one. I think I’m missing math.
I keep thinking about my ideal job: do math research for as long as I want, then do creative writing for as long as I want, back and forth. Of course, I could do that now; I have the time and I have the resources. But is it a devaluation of myself to be giving my work away for free? I already get little-to-no remuneration for the stories I write. Throw in free mathematical research in there, and what? I’d like to think my work is worth something, but it’s also a bit esoteric and pure math researcher doesn’t have any immediate real-world applications. As my twitter handle says: Reality is not my domain.
Maybe I’ll go prove something about math today. Just to be sure that I still can.