I don't think that the comparison with music or sports is correct. If I had to play an instrument I would ask for a motivation because I don't enjoy playing. Si

I don't think that the comparison with music or sports is correct. If I had to play an instrument I would ask for a motivation because I don't enjoy playing. Similarly someone who doesn't enjoy maths asks for a reason to study it. When you present maths to someone who doesn't like it on its own then the problem is to find a balance between abstraction and applications. When maths is presented too abstractly then it looks useless. When it's presented too concretely then it looses its essence and may seem trivial.