The mistake I was making was that I was trying to read lectures/blogs/books recommended by random people who knew nothing about me. It doesn't work. The thing is: math is big. It's HUGE, it's a whole world with something for everyone, and not everything in there excites me. I discovered this by accident by picking an easy and fun book about cryptography called (I think it was called The Code) - it was fascinating, it took me to wikipedia and I started to explore this world following my own interests And then it clicked: suddenly even "boring" aspects of math showed me their exciting sides.