The programming mindset

How can I know if I'm too stupid for programming/engineering/maths?

Is it true you need a good memory and be good at just swallowing lots of apparently random technical stuff?

For example BSD sockets. To "learn" them I guess you just have to memorize all these syscalls, the whole connection model. What does it even mean in a deeper sense? I don't know.

At one point you just have to have faith and be good at remembering lots of formulas, how do you do that

>>17

But I'm serious about the formulas thing, for example in Calculus I I had to learn and remember product rule, sum rule, quotient rule, etc. etc. In Calculus II had to memorize the integration by parts formula. In Cal III had to memorize Jacobian matrices. A whole bunch of formulas. Sure they have proofs and I can read them if I want I am all good with that but why should my purpose in life be to just memorize a bunch of results? Shouldn't my job be to come up with new results? If my job were to remember formulas I could have been a book instead of a human being. Memorizing and applying formulas never made anybody happy or fulfilled or anything, or really gain any deeper understanding of anything. I don't want to be a robot. I thought I could gain fulfillment from pursuing this maths/CS/etc stuff because it is supposed to be an "intellectual accomplishment" and useful for solving problems and whatever but I guess I'm too stupid for it