Apart from having the opposite of natural talent, I think one of the reasons I don’t enjoy operational math and find it just devastatingly boring is that I don’t enjoy finding the solution to puzzles.

What I mean is that it’s obvious that many people experience some sort of joy (I’m only speculating here, based on observation of others) when they solve some well-posed conundrum. This appears to motivate people, to provide some sort of rush and reason to continue, that promise of reward at the conclusion.

Here’s what I experience when I solve a puzzle or a math problem: annoyance that I wasted so very much time on something I could’ve looked up or asked someone who cares to complete for me.

I don’t get angry while looking for the answer; no, I experience that afterward when I realize that my time has been sapped by trivia.

That’s why in ninth grade I wrote after some algebra problems I couldn’t or didn’t feel like solving, “This is why they make calculators and computers.”

Whatever it is that puzzles do to or for other people, I just do not have that component. Probably explains a few things.