Comment by shearerp
4 hours ago
I'm a mathematician and I'm the biggest fighter most people have ever met this side of a PhD. It always felt like a fight to me personally, against the errors and entropy of my own mind. Not identical to cancer fighting but I'd say only the tactics are different.
I agree - to quote my goat Paul Halmos:
"Don't just read it; fight it! Ask your own questions, look for your own examples, discover your own proofs. Is the hypothesis necessary? Is the converse true? What happens in the classical special case? What about the degenerate cases? Where does the proof use the hypothesis?"
It's a fight! I envision myself as Jacob wrestling the angel.