> Unfortunately it seems like no one has been willing to teach the author what mathematics is. Attempting to learn mathematics as some sort of pattern matching,

> Unfortunately it seems like no one has been willing to teach the author what mathematics is. Attempting to learn mathematics as some sort of pattern matching, which is where having large sets of questions and answers to study is useful, does not work; it isn't mathematics. That is exactly how I got through university math so I think you are wrong. I worked on what felt like millions of problems the teachers gave out and then on some more I found in books. Then I looked on the answers and tried to figure out what my errors were. Then I worked on more problems. What didn't work for me was looking at lecturers writing out proofs for various theorems on the blackboard. I had almost zero use for that.