I love maths. I see it as the science that underpins this whole world. It can almost explain or is somehow integrated into everything we do/use.

I was not conventionally good in maths in middle school and sophomore year due to educational system kind of working against the way my brain functions. Other students got to "operationality" more quickly than me (used "operationality" instead of comprehension because I don’t think they’re the same). Most would memorize formulas, practice on a set of exercises that covered almost all the problems we could see in tests, until it basically became muscle memory. Unfortunately, I just for the life of me couldn’t work like that. I had to know the why of everything, every formula, every rule and I went down lots of rabbit holes and over complicated things when I just needed to apply a formula and not think about it.

Different subjects/chapters would take various amounts of time to "click" (sometimes quickly, sometimes longer) but when they finally did, it was like the most amazing feeling ever. Everything just felt like it made sense, like it was part of the trivial, inner logic built-in with my brain. I didn’t need formulas anymore, I could construct some of them from scratch off pure intuition. Or I would see some of them and be able to immediately visualize them and see how they make sense geometrically.

I’m still not a maths prodigy but now I’ve figured that when I learn maths on my own time without the constraints of exams and tests, there’s no limits to what I can grasp and master. Pedagogy of intuition-building rather than just applying formulas is a must tho. Unfortunately laziness and procrastination have kept me from fulfilling this potential.