estimations

unmantling my trauma

on the first day of camp prep we pitched our ideas for what classes to teach. one of the other instructors goes, “i’ll teach estimation. math is fun.”

i winced.

i was surprised how instant my averse reaction was to it.

i realized this was my response because i had met so many people in college who also liked it but turned out to become gamblers, poker players, or quantitative traders. they predicted things because they liked to predict the market and be right. too many times they’ve made me feel bad when i knew less than them.

later that day, he asked me why i was so bothered by people who like to estimate things.

“i don’t get the point of estimation. why does it matter if i’m right or wrong about something if i could just measure it? i think things that can’t be measured are a lot more interesting anyway. things in this world don’t have to be reduced down to a number”

i asked him why he liked estimation.

“it’s fun to estimate things that i don’t know the answer to.”

i softened. “so you don’t care about prediction markets and poker?”

he was confused. “no? i’m really sorry that’s what you think when you think of estimation”

i’ve never met anyone up until that point who’d wholeheartedly found it fun.

his curiosity was contagious. as the days went on, i found joy in estimations. i brainstormed questions for his class like “what is the weight of a blue whale?” or “how many rice grains are in a bowl?” or “how wide is the earth?”

“look, nancy loves it!” he’d exclaim as i lit up with question after question, newly fascinated by an activity i had previously despised.

the more questions i asked, the more they started popping up. i’d look at a waterfall and wonder if fish would survive the fall, i’d look at a mountain and wonder how tall it is.

pretty soon i was looking at the world like a child again. the next weeks, i experienced taiwan fully, looking at the world with wonder and curiosity i had forgotten i could have.

estimation was so intertwined in my mind with the stock market that it had completely ruined the beauty, art, and fun of trying to understand the world. it was so healing to realize that at its core, estimation starts with curiosity.