The point is that math is so freaking specialized that, unless you're one of the two or three people in the world working directly on a particular problem, you're going to have a rough time understanding any of it!
There seems to be hidden in this statement an essence that is true, but the statement is not exact. The true essense is that most Mathematicians
can walk into the library, pull out a mathematical journal, flip to the table of contents, and have absolutely no idea what 95% of it is about!"
But there is a certain quality, a temperament or even
lifestyle, or maybe merely a set of principles regarding how one conducts one's intellectual affairs, which is conducive to working well in Mathematics, that has, mainly, to do with how one approaches the Unknown. It is precisely how one approaches the Unknown which is important, for Mathematics is, foremost, an enterprise dealing with the Unknown, in such a way that moves each part of what was the Unknown that it had touched quickly into the Known. (Affirmators abound, of things of the Known.) Some are not so able to send it to the Known, so they send it as near to the Known as they can, whence lesser avanteurs send it nearer to the Known; eventually, it is sufficiently near the Known that nonavanteous intellects may take it whither they need it. Don't worry much about not understanding something, you can always pause to ponder; some fun courses:
(
F. Wiliam Lawvere,
Stephen H. Schanuel)
Conceptual Mathematics; (
Donald Knuth)
Concrete Mathematics;
(
Étienne Ghys)
Dimentions,
Chaos; (
Brit Cruise)
Informatics,
Cryptography;
