Humanity as such absolutely loves pointless repetition, and abhors thinking about something hard, which involves focusing intensely on one subject in which where no repeatable progression of simple successes is taking place, leading to a mounting sense of discomfort.<p>Just look at various cultural traditions, popular (and even serious) music, crafts, sports, ... <i>sneeze</i> ligion. Mindless repetition is everywhere.<p>The same kid that hates doing arithmetic will play the same video game for hours in which a small variation on the same set of events happens over and over again.<p>The kids you&#x27;re describing are the smart minority, of whom a portion will go on into STEM type fields. They too will hit their mathematics ceilings. Most will go as far as a couple of third year undergrad math courses and that&#x27;s where it ends.