Curse of the Gifted: Personal Account

I am miles away from Eric or Linus, but the "curse of the gifted" is very real. Thankfully I wasn't smart or gifted enough that I could ride it for long, but when it comes to math and problem-solving I rode it well into my high school years. I never learned to do algebra "by the book," because I didn't need to. Or maybe because I wasn't smart enough to. The math teacher would teach "3x 6 = 9." Basic algebraic problem-solving says you subtract the 6 from both sides, then divide by 3. So "3...