Some problems require time.

It took me 33.5 years to solve a problem that was important to me.

A solution did exist after all. And the conceptual/mathematical walls, mazes, and unexpected territories I was forced to traverse, taught me and gave me knew ways to understand problems.

I also learned the value of luck.

I thought it would take 3-5 months. 3-5 years, at most. (Not as an occupation, but as a side quest.)

Ignorance, incurable optimism, and hope are capricious sirens.

I clearly didn’t understand the problem like I thought. And my “quest” could easily have become a cautionary Don Quixote tale.

That experience gives me great appreciation for the famous organizations and labs that gave many minds the time to pursue, and help each other pursue, hard problems. Whose breakthroughs we still benefit from. Working somewhere like that would be a dream.