Worst case scenario

Since Christopher is repeating a year at school, he and Patrick are in the same year, but mercifully not in the same class. However, they do have the same math teacher. They each have a math test this week, so obviously they are studying the same material.

Christopher is surprisingly, almost uncharacteristically not bad at math. It is not a coincidence that math is one of the subjects he managed to pass last year. He is not particularly interested in or enthusiastic about math, but he has always been able to quickly and pragmatically grasp the concepts, and since he is "filling in the gaps" this year, he has more to start with.

Patrick, on the other hand, is a math teacher's worst nightmare. He takes delight in math and can develop tremendous enthusiasm when some mathematical concept takes his fancy. However, he is not necessarily always on the same page (or sometimes even the same planet) as the rest of his class and what the teacher thinks they are supposed to be learning.

Theoretically they should ideally complement one another and be able to study for the test this week together.

In fact, worse has now come to worst, and I find myself living in a household where people have loud and vehement and extensive arguments about asymptotes and the square root of x.

I don't know how we are going to survive three years of this, but since I don't even know what they're talking about, at least I don't feel called on to attempt to mediate. The square root of x is definitely no concern of mine.

Too many interesting things to do and think about

There are far too many interesting things to do in this world, too many interesting ideas to pursue, too many interesting people to correspond with. And being only one person, sometimes I have the feeling I just can't keep up. And why is it that the most interesting things always seem to be least associated with financial remuneration?

Sometimes I can convince myself that the problem is not that I am simply disorganized, the problem is really that conventional, traditional forms of the organization of everyday life no longer apply. Sometimes I am convinced that our perception of time is changing: as time is broken down into increasingly precise and ever smaller units, it has already passed beyond the boundaries of human understanding. The units are too small and too precise to accommodate the rhythms of human life, so no one can "keep up". The question then is, when do we reach something like "the breaking point", the point where people – at least significant groups of people – start refusing to accept the constant acceleration and just stop "functioning"?

Then I get up and walk away from the computer, notice my three men engrossed in their various activities, and I realize it is supposed to be my job to ensure that they – and the household we share – do, in fact, "function". How did that get to be my job anyway?

I have obviously not been paying enough attention to my three men and our household to provide any kind of account of what anyone has been doing lately.