[drorco]

It's just the way my mind works and motivated. Motivation is a very elusive feeling that I did not find easy ways to manipulate. It's not as if I'm totally blocked from learning stuff with no clear purpose, but it will require much more mental capacity that is often difficult to muster in the day-to-day routine. Another example, is I did try to learn what I perceive as totally theoretical math such as "prove that there are infinite primary numbers" which was a nice idea to entertain, but it didn't really make me want to dig in further. On the other hand, learning about linear algebra in the context of machine learning, suddenly got Linear Algebra a lot more interesting and easy to learn.

[siftrics]

Makes sense. Somewhat related --- I find procrastination to be a very similar feeling. I know what I should do, but I feel compelled not to do it, for whatever reason.

I think procrastination and what you are describing are slightly different, though, because procrastination stems from stress and emotions for me, whereas with what you describe, it doesn't sound like you have to be stressed to experience it.