I’ve just started journaling again. I’ve done this in the past, and fell out. Recently I was looking in my notes app, and realized that because of my notes from playing D&D, my recall of events in the game were clearer than my recall of events two weeks ago.

I’m cautiously optimistic about Apple’s idea for AI, and how I could leverage that data. I don’t know if I need to simulate my past self (I think that I can do that okay), but being able to query my hand-written notes with natural language would be amazing. It can already search my notes for words, but that’s still really limited.

We aren’t there yet. Right now LLMs don’t want anything. It’s possible that will change in the future, but those would be completely different entities. Right now it’s more playing the role of someone suffering, which it gets from fiction and expectations.

Some time away from the subject of would likely be good for you. Nothing bad will happen if you take a few weeks to enjoy nature, and get your brain out of that constant stress response. You’ll think better, and feel better.

Exactly. I live in the town that hosts the University of Florida. Despite Governor DeSantis best efforts of closing the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion offices, and all his other wasted efforts in his “war on wokism” the people that I know that work there haven’t changed their opinions, scientific and otherwise on topics that trigger the Governor.

Woah. I am in a very similar circumstance. Back when I was in college, my ADHD and depression weren’t yet diagnosed and treated. As a result I never finished the last two semesters of a Computer Engineering degree. I never really cared about hardware, and really should have gone for Computer Science, but I bowed to family pressure.

I have been writing code since 1983 when I was six years old, in one form or another. Like you, I became a software engineer. I feel super lucky to be one of those people who turned their hobby into their job, while still enjoying it as a hobby. I’m constantly learning, and likely spend at least an hour or so every day reading about new systems and ideas.

Also like you, I have hit a point in my career where I am paid well, and can afford to pay for classes.

Also like you, I want to study mathematics. Those classes were always my favorite in school. I have been focusing on learning Category Theory for a while, and I’d really like to go deeper, but short of a graduate degree program, that is becoming more difficult.

So it’s got me thinking. I would love to get a mathematics degree, but really for pure person enrichment. I love my job, and where I work. I’m not trying to change careers. Since I already met all of the requirements for a math minor, I doubt it would be too much more to get the BS, and then I could start on a graduate program.

I used to be a math tutor in college, helping students learn up to Calculus 3 and differential equations. I’m out of practice, for sure, but I have retained a good bit of it. I expect that I might struggle a little with the first class or two that I take just because I’m out of practice. I’m already spending time watching lectures, and reading, so I am fairly certain that I can fit it into my life.

Yet, I keep coming back to the question, “Why?” I don’t need to prove myself. I don’t need the status. I have the knowledge and experience to get any job in my industry. I’m good at what I do.

I have only been seriously contemplating going back to school for the past year. So far I’m mostly balking at the return on investment, given the time investment it will take. My son is 13 years old, and so I likely have less than a decade before he is on his own, and I’ll have even more time.

I also am considering it as my retirement plan. I can’t imagine sitting idle. I need projects. Once I am retired, and no longer need to work, then I can spend that time on personal enrichment. Spending my golden years working on a PhD in mathematics, while making contributions to OSS sounds positively dreamy.

As long as my brain holds out, of course. My aunt died of Alzheimer’s, so that’s a possible future for me. I’m 46, and so far, and I feel like my brain is doing just fine. ADHD makes things complicated and chaotic at times, but in terms of intellectual adaptability and cleverness, I feel as good as I did in my 20s.

So yeah, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll wait until I can have a full AI tutor and research assistant, and just eschew university altogether. Maybe this will remain an idle fantasy. Maybe I’ll find a community of folks that are in a similar place, and we’ll explore mathematics in some non-traditional setting. I don’t know yet.

Anyway, I feel ya, bro. If you decide to do it, I’d love to hear how it’s going. Maybe it’ll give me the kick in the butt that I need.

Recognizing couple’s privilege is the one that immediately comes to mind.

I also think of how the community responded to Sex at Dawn. There was a lot of excitement around the book when it first came out, but later the criticisms became more broadly recognized, and I don’t hear many reqs for it now.

I’ve also at least locally seen changes around calling people in versus calling them out.

Unfortunately nothing with hard data.