I once tried to learn some math from first principles in order to solve a symbolic dice problem. I had a question deleted from mathoverflow (probably because I did a lousy job wording the open ended question of what the heck the mathematical terminology even was for the problem I was solving) but it lead down the rabbit hole of abstract algebra and into universal algebra. I had discovered a simple dice problem where the only mathematical representation was a a “commutative magma” and I found reading the surrounding material fascinating. The ideas behind universal algebra, the notion boiling mathematics down to a set of arbitrary objects and abstract and arbitrary operation(s) and classification and rules build up based on what you define/allow the rules to be.
It’s surprisingly simple at a conceptual level but I rapidly stopped researching as I found the entire field seems to assume a phd level of math knowledge and terminology. For what I probably could have grasped in high school.
Math needs more people to try and build a chain of understanding “up from the ground level” instead of arbitrary starting points based on assumptions regarding prior learning and educational pipelines/universities.