Sometimes it feels as if I have accomplished nothing. As if all of the exposure, all of the practice, all of the hours, all of the failures, and all of the successes, have meant nothing.
We retreat back to the lodge. The constant hum of the motor infiltrates my ears as if I am in the center of the downpour of an inescapable waterfall. I close my eyes and see red. The hum of the motor fades away occasionally as I stare deeper into the floor of the skiff. I drift deeper in to my thoughts, replaying the moment I nearly had that permit eat my fly. The black, shadowy figure swam closer. I began to strip my line in towards me. It began to follow. I could see his eyes at this point. The image is too vivid in my thoughts. Then I am put out of my daze when waves slam against the flat surface of the underside of the skiff. I reach down and push my fly rod further in to its holster in the boat to keep it from being damaged. I try to think back to the fish.
Yet another day has come to an end without any results. No fish. I tell myself to keep things in perspective – to be grateful for what I have. I tell myself to not forget the importance of gratitude. But somehow, at this moment, it was the only thing that was important. The result. The goal. The fish. The fish was the most important thing to me – as if I would live happy the rest of my life if that Permit would have just cooperated and eaten my fly. And now our last day of full fishing has come to an end, and I still have yet to have their slime and smell coat my hands. However, I now have the potential to get much more of that in the future.
My current math teacher once told me a story of how he spent thirteen months working to find a solution to one math problem. In an e-mail he sent me regarding the thirteen months he spent on the problem, he said:
“It was a period of time where I was teaching at the University of Delaware and working on my own math research. … R(5,5) (the problem he was working on) has a certain allure to it. … There were certainly hot streaks where I worked for more than 8 hours each day on it. There were bouts of despair when another attack fell apart. I certainly went through the entire range of emotions.”
One of the examples of this rollercoaster of emotions:
“I remember one night in particular where I thought that I was extremely close to a solution. I was working with a fellow mathematician on the problem on this particular night. We were making steady progress and you could feel the excitement in the room. One more observation or twist of an equation and we were there! But, no matter what we did, we couldn’t crack it. I think we worked on the problem from 3pm until 6am the following morning. The entire time, we were convinced that R(5,5) was at least going to be partially solved. However, it was all for naught. By 5:30am, it was clear that our attack had stalled and that was the closest I ever felt to cracking the problem.”
He then continues with:
“Eventually, after 13 months, I threw in the towel. In order to earn a PhD in mathematics, you have to produce a new piece of mathematics. Whether that’s solving a large unsolved problem, discovering a new class of polynomials or finding a new method for attacking problems, it has to be new. A solution to R(5,5) would certainly have been new! However, there are many other areas of math that can produce new results that would be much easier than R(5,5). As a result, I had to scrap my research and start over on my thesis. However, those 13 months were absolutely not spent in vain. I learned much about mathematics and about myself. There were nights that tested my faith in my mathematical abilities and my desire to keep working on the problem.”
Although comparing catching a fish that many, many others on this planet have already caught to a completely un-solved problem in mathematics is quite a bit of a stretch, I feel that the same principles apply to both challenges. Whether it be in fly-fishing or mathematics, we must focus on the opportunities that the journey presents to us when we are trying to reach the destination – especially if that destination is one that is unknown.
“…you can learn quite a bit without accomplishing the original goal.”