The Three-Body Problem

“Then what about when you see geometric figures?” The teacher asked.

I said, “It’s just the opposite. In my mind there are no geometric figures. Everything turns into numbers. It’s just like if you get really close to a picture in the newspaper and everything turns into little dots.”

The teacher said, “You really have a natural gift for math, but … but…” He added a few more “but”s, pacing back and forth as though I was a difficult problem that he didn’t know how to handle. “But people like you don’t cherish your gift.” After thinking for a while, he seemed to give up, saying, “Why don’t you sign up for the district math competition next month? I’m not going to tutor you. I’d just be wasting my time with your sort. But when you give your answers, make sure to write out your derivations.”

So I went to the competition. From the district level up through the International Mathematics Olympiad in Budapest, I won first place each time. After I got back, I was accepted by a top college’s math program without having to go through the entrance examination.…

You’re not bored by my talking all this time? Ah, good. Well, to make sense of what happened later, I have to tell you all this. That high school math teacher was right. I didn’t cherish my talent. Bachelor’s, master’s, Ph.D.—I never put much effort into any of them, but I did manage to get through them all. However, once I graduated and went back to the real world, I realized that I was completely useless. Other than math, I knew nothing. I was half asleep when it came to the complexities of relationships between people. The longer I worked, the worse my career. Eventually I became a lecturer at a college, but I couldn’t survive there either. I just couldn’t take teaching seriously. I’d write on the blackboard, “easy to prove,” and my students would still struggle for a long while. Later, when they began to eliminate the worst teachers, I was fired.

By then I was sick of everything. I packed a bag and went to a Buddhist temple deep in the mountains somewhere in southern China.