Think back in your life as a kid when you became creative, and were scolded for stepping outside the box.
Oh now, vesta, dear.
Back when I was in the first and second grades, 6-7 years old, my brain froze.
I refused to acknowledge the existence of numbers higher than "20."
There couldn't be any number higher than that; "20" was the maximum number possible; there was no such thing as a number higher than "20."
At school, I was pretty much left undisturbed in this notion, because my teachers knew and understood that I couldn't learn from them, and my education was, really, entrusted to "home-schooling" by the parents and older brothers and sisters.
The older brother in charge of my illumination about arithmetic, the one born the same day as the sparkling old dude, but in New York City, was in high school at the time. I drove him nuts on this; he admitted there were times he wanted to slam me over the head with a hammer.
And this wasn't just a temporary, short-lived quirk; it lasted for nearly two whole years. It was probably the hardest job he ever had, convincing me that there are numbers higher than "20." He put a lot of hours he'd rather be spending playing baseball and football, trying to teach me.
I dunno how I finally got convinced there were in fact numbers larger than "20," because about the time I was coming to understand that, I learned about Roman numerals, and suddenly got it in my head there was no such number as "0" (Roman numerals have no symbol for "0").
All the way through the rest of grade school and high school, I spent endless hours in classrooms, trying to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, using Roman numerals. I'm sure there's a way to do it, but damn, despite all the time I put into it, I never discovered how.
My teachers considered me a well-mannered little lad, but all I had to do for them was just sit at a desk and be quiet for six or seven hours a day, nothing more than that, as easy as strawberries-and-cream. It was to the "home-schooling" teachers that I unknowingly presented formidable obstacles.
There are saints among us.
