Math Hell

Suppose you stop a random IU student on the street and ask them a simple question: What is Hell?
Religious studies majors will write you a paper detailing the historical and contemporary notions of Hell. Exercise science students will put you through a workout that seems like a firsthand look.
For many others, the answer might be quite concise: “Finite.”
Can we be honest, you and I? You probably hate math. Despise it. Loathe it. Did you switch your major to avoid taking it?
I don’t blame you.
Instead, I blame the people who for 12 years force-fed you something tragically different from the mathematics I know and love. You have been the victim of a system which is, as Paul Lockhart said, better at “destroying a child’s natural curiosity and love of pattern-making” than any other conceivable thing constructed for exactly that purpose.  
For example, my sister (Grade 7) began her school year doing “timed tests” – one-minute worksheets with 100 single-digit arithmetic problems.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a crime.
To torture a grown man with something so soul-crushing is one thing. But to subject a child to so much anxiety about an activity so futile is morally wrong. Worse still, my sister’s teacher called this crap “math.”
In hindsight, I believe the reason I am not a finance major stems from the week of College Algebra when we learned compound interest.
Compound interest bores the living bejesus out of me. It was supposed to jazz up math class with a topic “relevant to everyday life.”
Actually, math teachers were tired of being asked, “When are we actually going to use this?” and wanted an answer less exciting than “on the next test.”
That’s right, less exciting. At least if it’s on the test, it matters for my future. My bank already calculates on my behalf the one cent of interest (actual figure) I’m earning each month.
This summer, another math student described to me a mathematician’s Hell: “playing tic-tac-toe for eternity.” Since you’ll always tie, why go through the motions?
There’s a technical term for this particular scenario: a game that always ends in a draw between competent players is called “futile.” In other words: no surprises, forever. Yes, that would be Hell.
The issue with all these examples is that the procedure to solve every problem is identical. By giving timed tests, teachers essentially say, “Okay kids, make believe you’re a calculator!” For compound interest, just use the same equation, P times e to the RT: “Pert, like the shampoo!”
When “math” means “lather, rinse and repeat” to answer bland questions, math is Hell.
But there is an alternative. Good math problems don’t come with a prefabricated black box to solve them. They force you to try, fail, create, discover.
The greatest joy of doing a problem is finding a new idea to answer a meaningful question. Ideas are the heart of every human activity worth pursuing, and math is made of ideas.
And when “math” refers to this dynamic, powerful, human struggle to study beautiful abstract patterns and structure, math is divine.