Currently I'm following a master of mathematics at the university of Amsterdam and beforehand I must say that I'm very grateful for the opportunities that are given to me.
So to get to the point. I really am curious about mathematics the only thing is when I have to study for my courses I very soon hate the subject because of the academic pressure. The reason why I start hating the subject is because I cannot guide my own learning path, which really really frustrates me and sucks away my life energy. Also I have conflict with the often fragmented nature of courses given at university. As a result of this I even got depressive and lost the energy to pursue my own pet projects such as playing guitar and programming.
My personal goal is to really understand mathematics. But I cannot learn anymore in a academic environment, it stresses me out and makes me deeply unhappy.
The main reason I'm posting this on math.stackexchange is because I'm curious about an alternative path in which I can regain my pleasure in mathematics again and get the credentials of achieving mastery of the subject. What I was thinking about myself is that I just pursue my own interests and that I will just write a master thesis, following no courses what so ever. But I have to talk this through with my master coordinator.
What do you gentlemen think? Please be honest!
Academic pressure is inevitable. There is no use fretting about it. You should squeeze some time out of your schedule and reserve the same only for personal hobbies like playing guitar (as you mentioned). I am myself a synthesizer and a harmonium player and I find this very engrossing. As far as maths is concerned, I can tell you about my own thumb rule. Just introspect about the concepts little more deeply. Maths is the only subject in this world which offers so much of variations. I do this personally. As an example just think why is $|\mathbb{N}|$ and $|\mathbb{2N}|$ same ? I have just removed half the elements from the set and still they have the same cardinality. I try to think about what would have happened if this was not true. How our lives would have changed ? Introspection along these lines helped me a lot and continues to help me. I even sit and contemplate on God and sing His glory and thank Him, the supreme mathematician, the Cosmic Infinity for blessing us all with mathematics.
This may not be a direct answer to your question but just a thought which I couldn't resist sharing. Cheers.