Up until this week when I watched 2 hour interview with Chris Langan ( the so called 195 IQ guy who has his own theory of everything)
I didn't take quest for truth that seriously.
In middle school I had a nickname "philosopher" given by my peers, because I was bad at physical sports and I always asked uneasy questions to teachers.
Now, 25 years later, I realize, they were actually right. After having spent 10 years in academia, studying math/physics/philosophy/languages and keeping on with my uneasy questions
up to this day the one thing I have invested my full energy in is finding the universal truths about this planet, environment and society.
My mom, being a musicologist and a stern advocate of hard sciences always laughed at my efforts and expected me to fail as a linguist, because my grandpa was a math teacher
and someone told my mom I was gifted in math. I have studied 6 languages and self-taught several more and I got stipends while doing that.
Up to this week I thought that saying without self-loathing that, while other men search for the best ways to become millionaires (like my dad), I always searched for
ways how to connect the dots between math/languages/logic, would be impossible, it has changed.
That guy opened my eyes. I consciously declined a career in well paying jobs like programming despite winning a math competition and being awarded free programming courses when I was 11.
I declined a job in physics as well when I realized that theoretical physics is something you can't live on in Latvia.
Last two years I thought that to be accepted as a man in society you need to be a good provider. You have to be able to provide for yourself and your potential children.
From age of 22 to today I have been studying for most of the time. I never did anything for money, always for more knowledge. I left most of my degrees after the first year, because I felt like
I had extracted from my professors what I wanted. At the moment I have settled with pedagogy and I'm about to finally finish the degree.
Why I couldn't have had pride in being an independent thinker like Chris did my whole life? In Latvia where semi-poverty is commonplace, middle class is few in numbers, a lot of people earn 700 euros a month while 1% earns 10000 euros a month, money has been the talking point of most of my peers.
But I never gave up. Never took a job for money. Didn't go to UK when given a chance just to earn more. Never worked for someone I didn't like.
Why it's so hard to take pride in yourself when healthy amount of self-esteem is crucial to be an adult?
This week I realized that yes, I can't sustain a family of two, my own pupils are 28 now and they work in IT and earn thousands while I do what I love and earn the bare minimum.
But everything has been my own choice. I'm not poor or starving, I have held to my ideals and I should see my self-worth flourish due to that.
So what if engineers, IT guys and businessmen don't understand me. As Italian saying goes "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti."
- translated "Follow your own road, and let the people talk" from Dante.
As I realize it more and more that my thirst for knowledge is as big as ever.
I study calculus once more and prof today asked if I have a special interest in improper integrals.
I said yes, because some things in life are divergent, some are convergent just like integrals. Prof didn't have anything to add. She's there to talk about integrals not philosophy.
But I gave a presentation about philosophy of mathematics already in faculty and I plan to work on. It's lovely.
