Mathematics makes the mind its playground. And teaching play is hard work! It’s actually harder than lecturing because you have to be ready for almost anything to happen in the classroom, but it’s also more fun. It is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in soul. I would like to encourage institutions to start valuing the public writing of its faculty. More people will read these pieces than will ever read any of our research papers. I now explicitly say on my exams that I will give extra credit on incomplete proofs where students acknowledge their gaps. I get much more thoughtful answers that way. So let me encourage all of us to try having these conversations, to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and quick to forgive each other when we say something stupid. That’ll happen if you start to have conversations, and we just have to have grace for each other if we make mistakes—it’s better than not talking. I sometimes wish graduate school admissions would remember this too: “Background is not the same as ability.” As my friend Bill Velez says: If you want your Ph.D. program to have more students of color, then you have to stop admitting students on the basis of background and start admitting students by their ability. And then, support them. And he said, “I would rather see you work with me, than quit.” Web Mirror: https://mathyawp.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/mathematics-for-human-flourishing/