I Used To Envy Girls

by Bert Carson

Thanks to Adrienne Wall Photography

It's true, I used to envy girls.
I no longer envy girls.
I used to envy mathematicians.
I will always envy mathematicians.

You probably won't be able to easily figure out the connection between those four statements or why they are true for me.  So, let me explain.

Before a human baby can become a human being it must:
1. Learn to communicate.
2. Before it can communicate, it must understand the language of those it is about to throw in with.
3. Before it can understand the language, it must have a frame of reference.

It's at #3, a major problem occurs.

The first frame of reference for the baby is family, then relatives of the family, then people in the immediate community, and normally that is the limit of a baby's initial frame of reference, with one exception.  Within the frame of reference for the baby, is the gender thing.

Think of Gender as the built-in, first filter that effects everything we think before it reaches our point of view.  When I realized girls were using a girl gender filter, and boys used a boy gender filter, and I couldn't change that filter, I stopped envying girls, and just settled for admiring them and learning what I could about how their filter works, and of course how the boy filter worked.

Then I discovered that both boys and girls can do something about the rest of their point of view.  For example, if a person were born in Texas and their point of view included the belief that Texas A&M was the greatest college football team in the world they could change that.  Or if they were born in England and believed footballs didn't have pointed ends, they could change that.

And I discovered that if my inherited point of view included the belief that I was better than someone because of the color of my skin, I could change that.  Or if it included the notion that God only loved Christians, I could change that.

I discovered that I could changed every inherited point of view that was erroneous.  All I had to do was change my point of view so it no longer  reflected what I determined was false.

How do mathematicians fit into that?  Well, a non-mathematician's point of view hinges on the language he or she is taught by the first human beings he or she throws in with.  Mathematician on the other hand, share a universal language.  A language without a point of view and even without a gender filter.

How could I not envy that?

Bert Carson