This is an excerpt from one of my old diaries. Titled, "The Poison of Mathematics", it read thus:

"It is quite true that, when parents raise their children demanding absolute unquestioning obedience and conformity, children grow up without the ability to think on their own, in other words, without creativity and rather dull. Their personality suffocates to death. When they grow up, they may appear to be well off, maybe have a "good" job, and a so called well-settled life, but essentially, they are unthinking zombies. Death would perhaps have been preferable.

Now an extension of this idea to mathematics brings out rather interesting results. Mathematics, a very fundamental subject, is taught at school from a very early age, and perhaps rightly so. One of the fundamental ideas of mathematics is that a single problem even if solved in a hundred different ways will produce only a single solution.

Confined to the frameworks of mathematics, this assumption seems to work fine, even producing remarkable results, almost like magic. But, this could also be having a rather adverse side-effect on society. Brought up to look for that one single right answer seems to be killing the heart of society. The idea that only one answer is correct, and all else is wrong, syncs with the idea that only one way of life is correct and all else is absolutely wrong. It breeds intolerance into the psyche. And kills out of the box thinking.

I do not say mathematics is evil. But rather, I say, be wary of what you wield. It is a double edged sword that you carry. It can cut you down just as easily."

The way I proposed this idea to my friends is a funny tale! I gave a few coins to my friends and asked them to count it. Each one counted in turn and said there were eight rupees. And I asked them, how can you all get the same answer? Many explanations and insults (nothing serious, only the usual jesting) flew around. But I would accept none. Finally, driven to the point of irritation, one in the group came up, took the coins from me, counted them and said there were four coins, that is, four 2 rupee coins. And that answer, I liked. It was about breaking the constraints, breaking the rules and widening one's area of thought. In real life (for that matter, mathematics never refers to reality), no answer is right, and no answer is wrong. That is the moral of the story. And truly, god bless my friends for tolerating me! :-)

One should never let one's creativity be bridled and bitted by rules and norms. One should be free. After all, we are not number crunching machines. We are humans, and emotions and feelings are what rule us, certainly not logic.