I recommend reading histories of mathematics including more recent histories like Morris Kline's "Mathematics: the loss of certainty." According to other books by Reuben Hersh, such as "the Mathematical Experience" and "What is mathematics really?", mathematics can be seen as a social activity where what gets studied and what gets accepted as proven has a definite relationship to human existence and human social life. If you agree with this, even in part, history of math becomes important.
A few words on your questions:
Mathematics is no different from any other field except that its objects of interest are all abstractions. As an engineer you use it, so it appears to be about number and symbol pushing, but the theory of how and where to push the numbers and symbols and why it works was discovered by a mathematician at some point. The proofs are not ultimate but hopefully convincing given certain usually acceptable assumptions or axioms. We like the axiomatic method because axioms are usually not controversial and everything proceeds from them using strict logical reasoning.
Serge Lang has a series of books that cover these topics with a miniumum of fluff and in a maximally efficient way. Starting with his "Basic Math" and "Geometry", you could then study his "First Course in Calculus" and "Introduction to Linear Algebra."
So keep on making the world a better place. And as you're doing that, there will come a time when you'll look to your right or your left and see a guy who's also working to make the world a better place and you think he might be something special, give him a chance. Maybe he'll be the one you get to make the world a better place with, together.
Your intuition that it's not that complicated is correct. For example,
""Breathing in long, he discerns, 'I am breathing in long'; or breathing out long, he discerns, 'I am breathing out long.' Or breathing in short, he discerns, 'I am breathing in short'; or breathing out short, he discerns, 'I am breathing out short.' "
I think you are saying you are naturally aware of everything your body does and thinks as it is happening. You use your "third eye", the eye in your brain that looks at yourself as you do what you do, noting everything that is happening. Your mind doesn't attach to what it sees or thinks, but remains ready at all times to notice the next thought, the next breath, the next footstep in the present as it is happening.
Difficult Conversations is about why difficult conversations are difficult. It's based on research done in the Harvard Negotiation project.
Crucial Conversations is an approach where you learn to recognize early when conversations become difficult, and teaches some techniques to use when they do.
I'm from a hybrid humanities and technical background. Good writing is good writing: clear, simple, and easy to read.
Books that influenced me:
Style, by F.L. Lucas
Simple and Direct, by Jacques Barzun
For technical writing, I recommend four additional disciplines:
1.) Keep the documentation up to date.
2.) Allow and encourage your readers to give you feedback about what's unclear. Then make revisions based on this. Also, re-read what you wrote periodically, and make revisions whereever you think you can improve clarity and usefulness.
3.) Provide copious examples where you show how to accomplish useful things.
4.) Use the tool you're documenting. Find errors, corner cases, and things to be aware of and document them as comprehensively as possible.
I second the "Simple and Direct" recommendation. I stumbled upon it in a book store over a decade ago and I've never seen anyone recommend it before. Years after reading it, I still hear the author's recommendations in my head when writing.
You're not the only one who wants to trust their computer more.
There are a few projects working on creating a good root of trust at boot time.
For example, there's Raptor Computing Systems' Talos platform (1) with libre bootware for a desktop computing experience; Bunnie Huang's precursor (2) which is a handheld and mostly solves your problem, and variations on libreboot/coreboot which can be shoe-horned into existing hardware such as Dasharo(3) on to the PC Engines APU2.
On the other hand, you may not need to trust your computer if you don't connect it to a network and all information flows only towards it on read-only media.
It was a bad management move. It's basically saying that the company wants to exploit the employees and steal their IP. Companies that do this shouldn't expect anyone to innovate while working there. I wouldn't be surprised if your company folds soon.
Or it says management is paying attention to legalese.
For a few years Apple offered Safari for Windows. But they used the same EULA as Safari for Mac, which specifically forbade installing it on non-Apple OSs.
A few words on your questions:
Mathematics is no different from any other field except that its objects of interest are all abstractions. As an engineer you use it, so it appears to be about number and symbol pushing, but the theory of how and where to push the numbers and symbols and why it works was discovered by a mathematician at some point. The proofs are not ultimate but hopefully convincing given certain usually acceptable assumptions or axioms. We like the axiomatic method because axioms are usually not controversial and everything proceeds from them using strict logical reasoning.