I mean… math is the language that the universe speaks. It’s basically the language of God. It is everywhere we look. The Fibonacci Sequence is as apparent in abstract math as it is in pinecones and flowers. The way the wind blows and temperatures fluctuate can all be measured (and even predicted) by numbers. I know every buck in the valley by how many antler spikes they have. My house, my Xterra, my electronics, my medications, the roads I drive on, the clothes I wear, the pens and pencils I use; All of that has been created using humanity’s collective understanding of math. 

Math even plays an important role in art, music, and writing. Poems and songs that aren’t “mathematically sound” (for lack of better words) sound significantly worse than those that follow mathematical rules. Paintings that feel uncomfortably imbalanced feel that way because they’re violating some mathematical rule. The coziness of a bedroom can be completely thrown off by a picture that’s tilted too much to the right by a fraction of a centimeter. I could go on, and on, and on. 

Knowing all that, instead of asking, “Why do I want to learn math?”, I should be asking, “Why wouldn’t I want to learn math?”

I’m sure the answer to that question lies somewhere within my K-12 education, which is sadly where most people who hate math learn to….well… hate math! But, I’m not stuck in K-12 anymore. I’m a college-attending adult, holding solid A’s in all of my other classes (which goes to show that either I’m freakishly good at taking tests and writing papers, or I’ve developed really strong study habits that are holding up in even my more difficult classes, such as precalculus). 

In other words, it’s not the math itself I don’t like. I’m much more offset from math by the shitty environments in which I’ve been expected to learn math, as well as by the general arrogance that a not-so-insignificant number of teachers and math nerds seem to have (but those are topics for another blog). 

To be continued… I think…