[tCfD]

> And then another time my statistical mechanics prof informed me that "physics is just drawing cartoons of reality with math." That came as a huge existential relief by the way.

One of the most formative and sublimely influential 'aha' remarks I've ever encountered was a line in a Willam Goldman book about screenwriting which simply read, in the manner of a final summation to a chapter: "POETRY IS COMPRESSION." Caps in the original. I had the same sense of instant resolution, like wearing glasses for the first time, that you seem to have had with your prof's insight.