I'm not sure I ever had that reaction. I explored a few topics in different lectures in grad school which were pretty obtuse: ergodic theory, for example. I did

I'm not sure I ever had that reaction. I explored a few topics in different lectures in grad school which were pretty obtuse: ergodic theory, for example. I didn't get it, but I assumed it was because the topic wasn't suited to lectures, and after learning of the basic direction they were headed in and setting out myself, I found I could get pretty far. I've seen others give up on some topic rather than the method they used to try to understand it. It's the equivalent of someone saying "I can't get math" because they're spending all of their time remembering formulae, or someone saying "I'm no good at programming" while spending their time reciting bubble sort line by line in preparation for the exam. Giving up on higher mathematics is like that. Almost always, there's some path to real understanding -- you just have to find it.