OTF 13: CalcuLUSTING
Fringers, brace yourselves, for I think I have found my calling, my purpose, my reason, my why, the propane that lights the fire of my life for I have arrived at a revelation that has struck me in the deepest part of my being, my h-spot (heart)
I need to learn calculus.
I know many of you have probably fallen out of your seats, or lashed out and spilled your glass of water in reaction to the desire I have just honorably professed, so I will give you some lines to regroup.
A majority of you are likely shocked that someone with such an expansive resume and heaps of intellect is not familiar with the intricacies of the product rule or where to place a derivative on a graph. To that I can only say that I too am shocked, and frankly upset with my lack of calculus experience. While I will point no fingers, I blame my Calculus teacher in high school for having the stage presence of a Tree. Perhaps if there were witty and on the nose acronyms I could digest calculus through I would be graphing derivatives all day long and on my way to NASA or SPACEX (PS. the rumor that has been spreading is true: I did turn down their marketing internships to work at a Wine Bar this summer). With each sun that sets I am reminded how important it is to build a rounded character and brain… One that can both allocate immediately the best three dollar wine AND make it back to the apartment without google maps—please Calculus help me get home from the club!! I know that Calculus will not magically implant a compass into my brain or give me the colloquial knowledge to complete a NYT mini crossword in under thirty seconds, but it seems an effective and valuable way to build the biceps of my brain. I cannot see a reality in which it would hurt me to know more about the world of numbers and I would be lying if I said I’m not filled with elation at the idea of learning something completely new at twenty one. Interestingly, more often than you think I find myself jealous of my four year old self who got to learn how to ride a bike, or my five year old self who was faced with the challenge of reading (which I am exceptional at now btw). I continue to return to the same question: Would I be able to learn something from the very beginning, or am I too rooted in my perception of myself as a non-Calculus awesome ass lit dude to even give it a chance? Nerds can be full of swagger too right?! On my journey with words I have built myself a cozy home, a place for refuge and reflection, so I am ecstatic to discover the figurative duplexes that will reveal themselves to me on my numeric journey!
In a general sense, I feel that some of my habits (shoutout Suzanne Collins, Twinkerella Jones, and now Cameron) have kicked the right side of my brain to the curb, keeping me away from optimal development… and boy am I a stickler for brain symmetry. Calculus has always been a mountain I have failed to summit—my Everest of sorts. Freshman year when he/him Trey was considering a career in business I took Econ One and Math 16A. While Econ One remains one of my most gratifying courses, Math 16A was a complete and total KO, a failure lasting from the first online lecture to the last. Meanwhile, my great friend AlexJumps8 was demolishing Math 1B and knew how to get anywhere in a five mile radius within the first week of moving into Unit Three. A lot of this yearning for math certainly stems from him, coupled with the fact that during study abroad card games I have taken a concerning amount of time searching for the sum of two double digit numbers; trust me readers, the blank stare-off-into-nothing expression that accompanies this searching does not suit me.
A majority of my higher education has been spent learning the art of word manipulation—how can I articulate the argument that Roxana’s relationship to money reflects the ideals at the center of the eighteenth century marriage structure? Thus, I feel lopsided being able to mine a queer or feminist argument from any piece of media, but not being able to complete more than a medium-level Sudoku. In this light, I am tantalized by a field of study that is so naturally objective; in math there is a right and a wrong, a black and a white. While I typically object to any form of binary (as one of my great friends Natalia Girolami says: “Nothing is black and white”) in calculus the absence of ambiguity is a comforting feeling, and a way of learning that I have yet to explore as an adult.
In the past I have felt a similar yearning to reconnect with the Trey that was King of their fourth grade times tables competition, so much so that Sophomore year I decided to up my plate of units from 14 to 17 so I could take Precalculus. While the comedy I derived from telling people I was twenty conquering precalc was arguably more gratifying than the class itself, it was an amazing break from figure of the child 20 and history of the newspaper 10. I found it very intoxicating to complete highschool level math faster than any of my Freshman peers while proving to myself that my desire for math is not just a fad that finds value in a blog piece. Plus, with my two years of precalculus experience I am figuratively at the base camp of Mt Everest with my hiking shoes on; Calculus get ready for Trey!
Berkeley has also shown me how valuable it is to be curious; I look around at the people who surround me and am in awe of everyone’s innate inquisitive nature—something I often feel I lack. One of my most persistent fears is that I do not love learning/building knowledge and thus, when I come upon a natural desire to expand myself scholastically, I must seize it. Plus, in a state of semi delusion I see a post Calculus learned Trey being an even better writer, NYT mini enthusiast, and connections player than the one I am now. As I write this I realize that a lot of this math fire is fueled by the incompetency I feel staring down the mini, which, does that even have anything to do with math??
As aforementioned, I must also credit the people I surround myself with for opening my eyes to the practical value of knowing how to analyze. Similar to mastering words and the art of articulation, numbers and its associated fields is a language that allows you to live more authentically and gracefully in the world. My friends Alex and Faye especially can tackle most problems that arise, say on a trip in a foreign city, via their ability to analyze a situation and make the most rational decision. In this way, as English at Berkeley has taught me the art of slowing down and finding the meaning in detail, the ability to look at numbers and find an answer similarly requires you to hold a magnifying glass up to what is in front of you, using your brain and a set of rules to yield something from a set of parts: like words into a story!
With this being said, I am excited to start my affair with numbers, and maybe in a couple months I’ll be so inspired that I could write a long narrative math problem that involves a tumultuous love affair and a devastatingly heart broken #10 who must be plotted on the graph away from his long lost lover 2x+4— what x would preserve the union and queer love of #10?
Upon bringing this desire up to one of my wonderful friends Cami Clizbe, she responded with, “its much more practical to learn how to DJ” which is hella true. So scratch everything that has be said and be on the lookout for my debut on SOUNDCLOUDDDDDD.
