Swimming with the Math Sharks

Coffee in hand, I stare at the spreadsheet before me, glancing at the database of magic spells and training costs partly hidden to the left. The index column and names are visible, just barely, helping me to keep focused on the spreadsheet's shifting contents. A lovely tiny chart hovers just up to the right, its bubbles tracing a softly flowing pattern in a reasonably smooth line.

I gave up seeking symmetry hours ago and now seek equity. The error of my prior thought path became clear as it veered off the edge of a high granite cliff and plunged into the icy waters between Dwerry West and Bolgwier.

'SPELLS DON'T BALANCE!' I sputtered once I came back to the surface, dogpaddling frantically to avoid the passing icebergs and polar otters. A passing half-submerged blog slammed me in the back of the head and I sank in a whirlwind of flailing arms and thoughts. The coffee cup found its way back to the desk and cowered warily as I reached frantically for the database window and did a quick sort on the balance cost calculations, revealing a pattern I'd not seen. Of course.. of course.... just a bit of...

An hour or so passed, coffee grew cold, as a certain parity evolved. A slight training ramp adjustment here, a lowered mana cost there.. move a detection from this to that.. of course.. why hadn't I seen it before... there's that pattern... so close.. so near...

BAM. A math shark races in and clamps onto my arm, and the pattern collapses. Blasted math sharks...

Hi, I'm Casey, and I'm a mathaholiphobic. (Here's where you chime in with a wave of raised slide rule or pocket calculator, "Hi Casey!")

Mathematical functionality and I have had a spiraling love-hate relationship for about fifty years. I am highly adept at the basics - I can add, subtract, multiply, divide with the speed of a highly paid NASCAR driver. I love numbers. I hate what you have to do to them to get them to do your bidding!

Show me an algebraic equation of any size, though, and I freeze like the proverbial deer in the headlights. My operational IQ drops to about 65, my throat tightens as if I've swallowed a half-dozen cherry lifesavers at once, and my brain empties of all logical thought. It's embarrassing.

Sine, cosine, hypotenuse, tangent, coefficient, rational numbers, IRrational numbers, sets, unions, intersections... the only good pi is lemon meringue with finely grated bitter chocolate shavings!

There are strange exceptions to this mathaholiphobia. I 'get' Fibonacci but not Mandelbrot. I love patterns, spatial relationships, recurring sequences, yet hate paisley. Go figger. With the deft flick of a wrist I can calculate IRR and NPV and balance a balance sheet, coming up with a corporate health picture with ease. These require no black box thinking.. one progresses straight from real numbers that one gets from the face of an invoice to the non-mystical income statement.

What's the point, you ask pointedly?

Go try to disassemble your car, using nothing more than a soup spoon and a spool of light blue yarn. Nothing else. Once you have as much of it taken apart as you can in that fashion, attempt to reassemble it using nothing but a butter dish and the spare cord from that crock-pot you threw out fifteen years ago. Nothing else. No spare cord from a crock-pot? Go buy one, remove the cord, and throw the rest away.

Frustrated, ya say, bunkie? Ready to tear your hair out, friend?

Tools. The right tools for the task are crucial. The math shark with its jaws latched around my left arm assures me with a skin-ripping nod of its head that such tools are available, and that I could use them if I could just figure out how. Perhaps I lack something in the left brain, math function synapse quadrant, or the synapse gaps are up there cleverly disguised as rock lobsters.

My cat brushes up against my leg and purrs, assuring me that so long as I can work a canopener, my state of mathaholiphobia doesn't matter one whisker. Cool cat. I set aside the spreadsheet and database with its beautifully developing bubble chart, stand and stretch, and go to the kitchen to reward her with tuna. Duty must prevail.