Seriousness

One summer, while in college, I was taking a math class. One day the teacher walked into the classroom and announced there would be no class next Monday because he would be at the Amana VIP golf tournament, a one day event held every year in Iowa City the day after the U. S. Open, and attended by all the top golf pros.

He said, "the first thing you have to learn about mathematics is not to take it too seriously."

I played golf back then, and went to the tournament myself. The tournament was held on the university golf course, the course where I played abysmally. If a pro didn't shoot at least 9 or 10 under, he had no chance of winning the Amana VIP.

I'll be darned if I can remember the pro who won the Cadillac that year.

I took my teacher's words to heart about a lot of things in life. There have been some exceptions such as wars. It is not good enough to be right about wars because a lot of people are wrong about them.

It's easy to die in a senseless war.