I was fortunate enough to attend a maths talk by John Horton Conway about 8 years ago towards the start of my PhD. I was working on things related to the algebr

I was fortunate enough to attend a maths talk by John Horton Conway about 8 years ago towards the start of my PhD. I was working on things related to the algebraic closure of \F_2, and Conway had a neat observation that all ordinals smaller that \omega^\omega^\omega formed a field that was isomorphic to the closure. So it felt timely. But what I took from the talk is how casually he'd make references to deep personal life experiences throughout his mathematics. He referenced his divorces, suicide attempts, et cetera. All very casually, like it was no big deal. I was an angsty teenager and continued to be angsty in my early 20s. It helped me realize my issues were no big deal. RIP John Conway.