I recently ran across this provocative note:
And when I gave up on archaeology, it was theatre that was there waiting for me. It was the first time I consciously made a decision based on autobiography. Instead of examining my feelings (which change hourly anyway) or making those ridiculous pro-and-con lists that always look so rational, I simply looked back at the last few years of my life and saw that the only thing I did that I really followed through on, the only thing I did over and over again regardless of whether it profited me in any way, was theatre. So I changed majors, thereby determining much of my future.
— Orson Scott Card in Maps in a Mirror
Card wrote this in 1990 in the introduction to a collection of his short science-fiction works. This resonates with me because I did the same thing, except it was barely conscious, when I chose to major in mathematics. I have generally explained my choice as the subject that was easiest for me, but I have never felt comfortable with that explanation. After reading Card’s note, I believe a more satisfactory explanation is that mathematics was the activity that I “followed through on, the only thing I did over and over again regardless of whether it profited me”. Now, 64 years after that consequential decision, I neither regret the choice nor have quit doing mathematics.
George
Crescat scientia, vita excolatur.
Crescat scientia, vita excolatur.