The Merits of Math?

Hey everyone,
I'm not sure how I got lost and ended up here, but now that I am I have a question for you all. I am a visual-spatial learner, on his way to some day become an artist. All my life I have been better at drawing and expressing/understanding the world and myself emotionally than I have at logic and argumentation. I am a strong case. To give you some examples, I am 21 years old and mess up every time I have to give someone change back when exchanging between notes and coins. I know the four basics, addition/subtraction/multiplication/division, and when I am explained concepts I generally tend to feel that I understand them...

But I always fail when I try calculating by myself, be it by head or anything else. And if I have to in an important context, it gets twice as bad, I lose my head and become nervous and fail tremendously. So, all this time I have lived by the perception that math are good and can help us, but are not that important and can only contribute to special "logically gifted" peoples' lives.

I am currently going through a course where I also take some basic high school level maths as a required subject. I felt nervous with the idea as first as this is actually the highest level I've ever taken, but our teacher is great. He's different and tells me that I could probably be good at it. This is something that actually somehow strikes me at the very core of who I am.

My question here is: What can I use math for? What use does it have? Why should I bother learning? Not speaking as an artist now, but as a person. How can it help me in my life. The way classes usually happen is that we learn...

"This is how you do something." (obscure)

But not why we even want to do it. This is how math has always been teached to me. Recently I have become more in tune with me being a visual-spatial learner, but schools don't teach appropriately for that here. Still, I have been able to use my own approach on learning from our classes, and surprisingly I am seeing progress. This surprises me.

As I mentioned, I need you to help me with probably the most basic of all math that can be taught - what merit it has for existing and being used. I feel that with this teacher I could go out of my way and practice in the afternoons, but I have no argument to why I should. Everywhere math is considered the root of "being smart", but I've never had it with me and still people hold me in high regards.

Please help me.
You could be changing someone's life and preconceptions permanently.

>>1
If your mainly a visual spatialist then you should have a good ability to understand graphs, planes and grasp geometry... Perhaps also better at the abstraction level.
But if you're anything like me, it takes longer to see the numbers themselves in an abstract way that makes it easier and the whole numbers and calculations parts will always be a pain in the ass. You will probably be able to grasp new concepts easier and perhaps remember formulas for them decently.

Math itself can be used for just about everything, but it's not required. The correct term is 'applied mathematics.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_mathematics
Technically you use applied mathematics when you do shit like measure areas and count money and shit, but that's basic... Word problems would most likely be better for you if you also have good linguistic skills and learn the 'keywords.' Barring word problems, you may do well with 'seeing' the problem and being able to figure out how to solve them using whatever math you learn that's appropriate for that.

Geometry and trigonometry will probably be your best areas to work on for that.

Higher math isn't going to help you too much if it's not required for your job, unless you've got a knack for applying it in every practical situation no matter how assinine. Most people don't.
Learn it if you like it, otherwise don't worry about it. Don't worry about it in an intellectual manner. There are many things that intelligent people do besides math, it's generally considered something for 'smart' people because everyone gets to take a crack at it over thier lifetime in some form of another so they see how much difficulty they have, but it's just like other areas in life.
Sometimes people who are good at math aren't so great at other things either.

Depends on the individual. Just figure out whether you have a place for it in your life or not and take it from there. Don't force it to 'seem intellectual.' Trying to seem 'intellectual' is the most unintellectual thing you can do. It's far better to choose an area of study, and actually study. It helps if you like the area.

For a good demonstration of how math could be used in various settings, watch the tv series numb3rs... The math behind everything is legit, but most if not all of the cases are based on actual cases but that aren't true to how they were actually solved, in which case by completely non mathemetical means by normal people.
But the math principles they discuss and 'use' in the show are real. Though the show ends up getting into a lot of repeat 'use various maths to find where badguy is.'