The school system has never explained to me what this subject is actually used for, and as such I find it nearly impossible to care about some isolated set of functions that have no connection to reality whatsoever. I've tried numerous times to learn on my own and I've read several of the books that claim to make it easy and straightforward. I'm getting very desperate here and am looking for books, resources, or anything to help put me into the mind of an engineer so I can a) pass calc 1 and finish my undergrad and b) just understand why there is such a huge lack of explanation as to why knowing about derivatives and integrals allows for traveling to the moon and back.