I went to visit an old teacher of mine.

During my formative years of schooling, I struggled with Mathematics. Despite being one of the most logical subjects, I failed to grasp the basic concepts. I lacked the ability to problem-solve, I suppose this was due to a lack of a proper figure who could teach me otherwise, but I believe, blame goes both ways, I was never a student who focused in classrooms. They always bored me. I believed I could learn it all myself, from scratch.

There is nothing wrong with such a mentality, yet I never put in efforts either. To have confidence in yourself when your actions don't back it up reduces it to mere cockiness, and arrogance.

This arrogance reflected in my grades. Barely scraping by in subjects which required critical thinking. It is fair to say critical thinking is a sub-part of common sense, to use your own brain instead of relying on facts given by the rest.

One of my closest friends back then introduced me to this teacher. On the first glance, all I saw was a plain, middle-aged man. There was certainly nothing spectacular about him, he was probably one of the most generic people I had ever seen.

Being judgmental, that was one of my core 'strengths', which I regret till date.

He held his classes in his basement, lit up by a single tubelight. The basement was as plain as him. Dried-up wall paint, and a lone bookshelf in the corner, filled to the brim with books, and all of them were old. Even from the distance, I could see the tears on the seams.

There was nothing spectacular, nothing seemed 'intelligent' about him, nor his place of stay.

My first class under him was about co-ordinate geometry. I put in zero efforts, because I did not plan on joining his classes. I can barely recall what he said, because I was never listening. My mind already put up a wall around itself. The narrow mindedness of mine was harrowing, now that I think of it.

He sent me home with some homework. I decided to give it a go. My memories are faint, but I can recall myself struggling with everything. Backtracking from the questions, reading everything, I barely had a clue on how to solve the questions.

The next class of his, I told him I was barely able to answer anything. With a few strokes of his cheap ball pen, he provided the answer. I wasn't stunned, but more-so confused on how something that seemed so simple according to the book's examples could be as complicated as that.

The book relied on formulae to come to an answer, and that the solution was merely 2 lines long. His solution was longer.

I took some time to read what he wrote, and for some reason, despite seemingly more complicated at the first glance, it felt more intuitive. Something clicked, I am not really sure how one can describe that feeling, but imagine pushing against a wall, trying to brute-force your way through, but then you find a single loose brick, pull it out, and the whole wall comes down crashing.

That was my first experience with critical thinking.

Over time, I began to understand my teacher more. He was simple, yes, but the knowledge he had was immeasurable. I have very rarely seen people of his caliber. Sciences, Humanities, you name it. He truly loved knowledge.

Imagine a wizard, in his own dark, decrepit, run-down shack, with a library full of tomes, trying to absorb as much knowledge as they could. This metaphor is fairly new for him, but close to what I felt back then.

His library, as debilitated as is was, was not a product of bad storage, but more so, it was due to the amount of times he read those books. He opened those books enough to tear the seams until it was nothing more than a bundle of loosely-held pages.

His way of thinking, his approach to knowledge, did rub off me. I began to treat knowledge more as a tool to solve problems, looking for applications in everyday life.

I hold him in a very high regard. I appreciate him immensely.

Some months ago, I decided to visit him again, for absolutely no reason. Turns out he got married, and had a child. I never thought he'd get married to anything except books.

I had a talk with him, a generic, how is life, and everything. My goal wasn't to share my sadness, but sometimes, you meet people with whom you can't help but be vulnerable.

I told him what I had gone through, he was genuinely sad. Maybe, I did see his eyes tear up.

Talking to him felt good, in a way, liberating. The thoughts I had been harboring for months, I finally had someone who would lend their ear, by their own volition. I visited him a couple of more times after that. Every single conversation we had was great, and I felt at home. He is a great human being, as much as he is a great teacher.

Perhaps it was my overthinking, but I felt I was exploiting him. From an economics point of view, a trade where I gained comfort, in exchange for his time, and genuine kindness. I stopped visiting him, abruptly.

There was a thought in the back of my head, a guilt of sorts. I sought him out purely due to my own sadness. Even if he enjoyed talking, his time belonged to his beautiful family, not with someone who appeared only in sadness, never in joy.

Did he ever cross my mind then? When I was happy, and my head aloft?

This guilt, with such reasoning was the reason I decided to stop visiting him.

I began to think. That is what one does when in isolation - Are all human relationships transactional in nature?

The love I had for my partner was unconditional. I cared for her, I loved her immensely, yet there were no transactions. I did not keep a score, or tabs It didn't matter what dimension of commodity we traded. I just wanted to keep giving, as much as I could.

Familial love too, is unconditional in nature, there are no terms or a contract you have to uphold, upon who's failure you are deprived of all love.

Maybe, the relationship between a student and the teacher too, is more or less unconditional in nature.

My first interaction with him was solely monetary, to be taught by him in exchange of currency, yet I think this is an oversimplification. Our interactions, even though were started by a barter, but over time they began to change. I paid him to teach me mathematics, but he taught me life, his perspective, his outlook for free. To be fair, I believe I owe him more for that compared to the mathematics I learnt from him.

I find it strange. It does sound pretentious, as if I am not human, but when I try to understand, it makes even little sense. Why do we care for people?

Atoms don't care, they just intend to reach their most stable state. They hold no regard for the chain reaction they may produce. In the truest sense, atoms hold the definition of what it means to be transactional. A step above, molecules are more or less the same. Another step above, chemicals too, are nothing more than just the transactional property of atoms multiplied.

Humans though, made up of the same tend to be different. We do strive for optimization, yet we find ourselves rethinking our choices merely because of the emotions we feel at that moment. Sometimes, we act in a way that puts us at risk, just to help the other.

You could attribute it to hormones, or enzymes affecting the way we perceive the world, yet, these are a product of an external stimuli. Why does looking at someone sad, make us sad? What inside us forces us to share their sadness?

We are the sum of a whole, yet we are not what our constituents are. We differ, in a variety of ways.

Humans have a capacity for both goodness and evil. Some find peace in helping others, and some find joy in hurting. The either ends are far from an optimal route one could take in any given situation, yet we do. Maybe optimization isn't about being good or bad, maybe to be rational isn't evil, or being emotional isn't virtuous. Maybe the labels we attach to such adjectives is a flawed concept entirely.

I find it special, and strange. Humans are unique, every one of them.

My teacher, the one person I wasn't in touch with for years, cared for me a lot more than a lot of people I had known for a long time. If this isn't unconditional, his genuine goodness, then I don't know what else is.

Maybe I am being selfish by not visiting him. It is an extension of my own arrogance, to believe in the superiority of my moral compass. The anatomy of my morality is flawed, but it is my pride which keeps me stuck to it, considering it the pinnacle of morality. Nobody has all the answers.

This thought process of mine is reminiscent of what my younger version considered academics to be. I believed I had matured, yet I still cling to the same thing which once plagued me.

I have to learn again. I have to broaden my perspectives again.

Maybe I will visit him again.