I think this is going to work a bit differently for everyone, and I have no idea what kind of pre-existing math knowledge you have, but part of the answer is: play with it. Let it be fun. Realize that math isn’t stuffy rules passed down by wise elders, it’s something that came out of people trying to figure out a way to capture the essence of some facet of the world in a way they could work with and manage.
For me, I first really started appreciating math, as opposed to being good at what schools told me math was, when I started reading books like The Art of the Infinite (Written by the Kaplans, who founded The Math Circle, a program to teach kids a creative, problem-solving-based, cooperative approach to math). Other good books to get a flavor of what I mean by “play” might be: Flatterland or anything else for a mass audience by Ian Stewart, anything else for a mass audience by the Kaplans, and if you’re up for it, the main popular works by Douglas Hofstadter (Godel Escher Bach, Metamagical Themas, The Mind’s I).
I would even recommend, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman” for a few really good anecdotes about what it looks like when some actually tries to use their knowledge to operate in the world, as opposed to others who are treating it as some kind of separate magisterium.
And then, try to find little puzzles, things you might never have realized you never knew but that seem like they should be solvable without too much advanced math.
Random examples:
Without looking anything up, estimate: how far away is the horizon if you’re standing outside on flat ground? On a mountaintop?
Imagine you’re an ant on a wall in a 10x10x20 room, one foot from the ceiling on the midline of the front wall. You want to go to the midline of the back wall, one foot up from the floor. What’s the shortest path, and how long is it?
If I have a pile of identical marbles, what’s the tightest way to stack/pack them, and how much of the total volume of a space can they fill that way?
Do some Fermi problems to get a feel for estimating things. E.g. Go to a library. How many books does it contain? Pages? Word? Letters? What do they all weigh, in total? Or, try to estimate random real-world facts. How many cars or pencils exist?
I think this is going to work a bit differently for everyone, and I have no idea what kind of pre-existing math knowledge you have, but part of the answer is: play with it. Let it be fun. Realize that math isn’t stuffy rules passed down by wise elders, it’s something that came out of people trying to figure out a way to capture the essence of some facet of the world in a way they could work with and manage.
For me, I first really started appreciating math, as opposed to being good at what schools told me math was, when I started reading books like The Art of the Infinite (Written by the Kaplans, who founded The Math Circle, a program to teach kids a creative, problem-solving-based, cooperative approach to math). Other good books to get a flavor of what I mean by “play” might be: Flatterland or anything else for a mass audience by Ian Stewart, anything else for a mass audience by the Kaplans, and if you’re up for it, the main popular works by Douglas Hofstadter (Godel Escher Bach, Metamagical Themas, The Mind’s I).
Heck, go back and read Alice in Wonderland, but with an eye to the fact that Lewis Caroll was a mathematician writing drug-addled fiction about the advanced math of his day.
I would even recommend, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman” for a few really good anecdotes about what it looks like when some actually tries to use their knowledge to operate in the world, as opposed to others who are treating it as some kind of separate magisterium.
And then, try to find little puzzles, things you might never have realized you never knew but that seem like they should be solvable without too much advanced math.
Random examples:
Without looking anything up, estimate: how far away is the horizon if you’re standing outside on flat ground? On a mountaintop?
Imagine you’re an ant on a wall in a 10x10x20 room, one foot from the ceiling on the midline of the front wall. You want to go to the midline of the back wall, one foot up from the floor. What’s the shortest path, and how long is it?
If I have a pile of identical marbles, what’s the tightest way to stack/pack them, and how much of the total volume of a space can they fill that way?
Do some Fermi problems to get a feel for estimating things. E.g. Go to a library. How many books does it contain? Pages? Word? Letters? What do they all weigh, in total? Or, try to estimate random real-world facts. How many cars or pencils exist?