I'm such a weirdo (& I wasn't even on any drugs when this happened:) When I went back to school to get my Biology degree, I, of course, had to take a year of Calculus. I love Calculus! But the overly rigid structure of acquiring the knowledge is a bit of a drag.
One day I walked out of class and could see differential equations in the leaves of a tree, describing how they take the shape that they do.
And ... when I discovered fractal geometry, it was all over for me.