He seems genuinely interested in Surreal numbers. Seems like he found value in exploring them and the Lean process, devoting time and interest to it and understanding what it's like to be a mathematician. I think a lot of people who go into Computer Science may have been mathematicians in the 30s before they became separate majors at the university level.

What is stopping anyone from finding the value they would have found before?

Every human has to go through this in modern times.

I got quite frustrated and disappointed when taking pictures because everyone was doing it and my picture of x was similiar to others taking picture of x.

Either you learn from it and accept that and still do it, or you don't.

But its not new

Nihilistic view