Undergraduate / Amherst Supplement: Rigor and Insight / "Another chapter in Amherst" [3]

Prompt is: 1. "Rigorous reasoning is crucial in mathematics, and insight plays an important secondary role these days. In the natural sciences, I would say that the order of these two virtues is reversed. Rigor is, of course, very important. But the most important value is insight--insight into the workings of the world. It may be because there is another guarantor of correctness in the sciences, namely, the empirical evidence from observation and experiments."

I just stood there, the wry smile belying the confusion raging inside the timid body of the teacher that I possessed. Why is beard - la barbe- feminine? Searching eyes looked up for an insight from their venerated- I hoped- teacher. I ran my fingers through the mess I called a beard, wondering how centuries of rigorous reasoning failed to answer this question. A few snickers ran wild in the classroom, and flustered, I cursed Descartes and his fellow vagabond thinkers for failing to find the answer to a question that must have plagued mankind for centuries. Alas, reasoning had found another victim, one that now wore a puzzlingly feminine mark of masculinity.

Ever since this astonishing disruption in my unequivocal belief in rigorous reasoning, I have come across several instances where the shortcomings of rigorous reasoning are all too evident. I played along many a song to a friend who needed an emotional kick, padding my songs with the happiest C and G chords. As the glares of my friends piled up, I quickly grasped how I lacked the appropriate insight. My once appalling reaction to insight's power in the science of the human mind slowly began to grow into an affectionate tryst.

Today, a sad little pumpkin would find me handing out dark, brown, and downright murky bars of food. However, wise as I am today, I have realized that chocolate's power transcended our well-thought out infatuations with bright colors. The bitterness, which I thought would be a dagger to the well-being of the well-meaning children living in desolate slums, was, in fact, theobromine, a stimulant. Insight. Alas, this insight prevented several awkward rendezvouses with my battered guitar, and rather turned my work in my youth organization into something worth smiling about.

The frequent failures of rigorous reasoning in the sciences have made my fixation with the working of the physical world all the bore exciting. It is this need for insight that has become my joie de vivre. Seldom could I refuse to squirm in wonder at how perfect darkness could be achieved inside a mirror ball. Nor could the peculiar workings of the PN-diode taunt me any further! My quest for insight has, unfortunately, become not only my raison d'etre, but my inspiration to persevere as well.

Slowly but surely perhaps my quest is now journeying eastwards, with newly-borne hope and determination, heading across the Pacific towards another chapter in Amherst, Massachusetts. I smile; maybe someday, my tryst with peculiar insights would lead me to the answer to the question that bummed me every time I pick up my razor.

Also, could you tell me which parts might be weak, and where I can improve?