Dear Math Gods,
As a student, please give me
the perseverance of "Hartshorne", the fortitude of "Atiyah and MacDonald", the abundance of "Griffiths and Harris", the humility of "Evans", the patience of "John Lee", the kindness of "Loring Tu", the wisdom of "S.S. Chern", the brutality of "Kobayashi and Nomizu", the intrepidity of "Spivak" and the bravery of "Rudin".
As a "to-be" mathematician, please grant me
the eloquence of Serre, the tenacity of Hilbert, the talent of Galois, the proficiency of Ramanujan, the shrewdness of Fermat, the enthusiasm of Noether, the creativity of Hamilton and the brilliance of Grothendieck.
As a "hopeful" academic, please protect me
from the world of petty politics, frustrating bureaucracy and the competitiveness to attain grants and tenure. Please keep my love for math, pure and naive, unjaded and untouched by the years.
And lastly, please forgive me. I get distracted by my physical fitness, the way I look, my trivial personal life, my emotional turmoil, and anxieties. I still let my ego and fear of looking stupid get in the way of asking people simple but necessary questions. I am seriously haunted by the fact that I still do not do most of the exercises.
Compared to the international gene pool, I know I'm not the sharpest or most gifted. I'm not a math olympian. I have no publications. I feel like I'm nowhere near the 22-year-old versions of my role models. I lay in bed every night, worrying if I'll make it or not. Perhaps it is foolish to think that one day, the mathematical universe will love me back because math is math. It shows love to no one, equally.
But whether you think me worthy or not, Math Gods, I can promise you this. Though all my friends drift away from me, though my family leave me, though I am driven away into the fringes of society and the depths of solitude, I will always keep trying. I have seen too much to turn away from the vast expanse of knowledge. I have gone through too much to give up now and god, I just want this to work out so badly. So as my final request, please give me the grace to accept my utter ignorance, the resilience to work through my astounding limitations and the bravery to fight my dragons. If not any of this, please, keep being beautiful.
Your humble servant