The problem with mathematics is that it makes me uncomfortable.  Not because I’m afraid I won’t understand it or that I’ll do poorly on a test.  Both those things are true, but neither bothers me a bit.

For me, the problem is that math is so damned predictable.  That’s sort of the point, I suppose, but if mathematics can indeed perfectly describe existence, there is very little room… actually no room… for free will.  That makes me sad.

Math finds patterns; and patterns are predictable; and things that are predictable are predestined; that is to say they don’t have choice; and I want to feel like I have some control.

I take such comfort that there are things that are unpredictable.  Unpredictable things make me think that, perhaps, while there are rules and a great deal of predictability in the universe, maybe there is also something else – a life spark – something that does not bow to the deterministic power of math (or rather the deterministic power that math describes).

Perhaps, bound as I am by the tides of existence, I may also have true choice.