Biology <-> Physics <-> Maths

There's an old joke, biology is really physics, and physics is really maths. It's easy to extend this to a much longer totem pole, something like Politics->Sociology->Economics->Psychology->Physiology->Biology->Physics->Maths->Philosophy... etc. (It wraps round).

However, it occurs to me an equally valid way of phrasing it, but one which allows the smugness to gravitate to the other end of the spectrum, would be "Biology is physics which is too hard for physicists to solve. Physics is maths which is too hard for mathematicians to solve".

And there's a lot of truth in that. Mathematicians are disdainful that physicists use approximations (especially if they use them when they don't need to). But mostly, physicsts use approximations for things that can't be solved mathematically (eg. stuff with more than one hydrogen atom in). Both are completely necessary :)

Self-monitoring

It occurs to me, that if I'm getting stressed by a situation, I feel compelled not to let that out in public, which is a very laudable aim, but typically backfires. Since I feel I can't show any stress until I have to, it means (i) I subconsciously want to boil over just a little earlier as a way to stop getting loaded with more stress and (ii) I've no way to escape until I totally implode.

I think it partly comes from socially-unaware and perfectionist tendencies: if you tend to equate any form of failure with "I might as well not bother", you subconsciously assume it's better to hold on as long as possible in the hope that you get through without any failure. Whereas for normal people, admitting a small failure now is better than holding on five more minutes and then imploding :)

Rather than going on thinking "I'm fine, I can hold on longer", it would be more useful if I could recognise when I was shortly going to run out of reserve, and get out somehow earlier. That might be rude, but presumably better than waiting till I implode. But I don't really have any practice at actually doing so, as I only just found the words to explain what I think was going on.