Today, on a bike ride, I visited in the home of Peruvian poet Fernando Fonesca Zumaeta. He writes poetry and prose and makes peanut butter and marmalade. He lives about 40 minutes outside Iquitos.

Fernando was stirring peanuts to make peanut butter over the open fire in his outside kitchen. Nearby was another older man, studying a mathetmatical textbook with a small solar panel nearby. In full open jungle, in front of a small bench, on a Sunday afternoon, studying mathematics.

I was so struck by him, I asked if my friend Rahul could take his photo. And then if I could write about him here.

I admired so much his quiet matematical concentration, I am pretty sure that this is what this looks like. This is what this dedication looks like, this is what self-study looks like, and this is who I want to be looks like, carefully attentive, objects of importance on the bench in front of me, and fully focused.

This is what it looks like, when we decide. And there is nothing but a scape of green behind us.