Good Morning, It’s your captain speaking. Welcome aboard the Developer’s Commute. Today we will explore why every programmer should learn about Art and culture, some interesting tweets, and articles.

Human Error

Why every programmer should be interested in Art and Culture?

Designing an outlet for your frustrations and escaping from stress, can be done with the help of Art or Culture.

What do I mean by that?

You are trying to make a project or add a new functionality to your code, but can’t seem to understand it well. Maybe you are missing something. A foundation is missing, that you need, to understand this code. You try to read some articles, investigate some videos and try to find something related to your code. We have all been there.

It is hard to remember and understand every piece of code. The process is messy and stressful.

If you keep doing this week after week, you will end up frustrated and burnt out. You need an outlet for creative endeavours which makes your creativity flow. So that whenever you come back to your code, it feels refreshed and you can look at it with a new perspective.

Art and Culture are good sources of creative expression, they form the perfect outlet which makes your brain fall in the flow of creativity.

I guess programmers are sculptors. Carving their way out to reality.

In this newsletter, we will explore “Why learning about Art and culture is good for programmers”. It forms part of the Human Error series, in which we explore different philosophies which make you overall a better human being.

Have you ever thought that programmers are like linguistic people?

Trying to communicate with the computer in many languages. To create something useful for other people.

So is the expression of art, where artists are trying to express feelings or show reality to other people. They both are the same. But, in different senses. It is here the programmers and the artists intersect.

So how can one form an outlet?

If you are a programmer, learning to read books and read about art or history, forms a creative outlet. You can take these expressions and write, paint or just enjoy pieces of work. I know that watching a Netflix series or playing games sounds more fun to do. But, have you ever thought, about why some people enjoy reading books over watching movies?

What is it that you are missing that you can’t enjoy books but they can?

→ Curiosity

→ Exploration

→ Focus

→ Concentration

I am not implying that games or movies are the bain of mankind. No, instead I love them just like you. But, these forms of art are merely 100 years old whereas books and stories are from the time of cavemen. Imagine what kind of stories are hidden in these books that have been refined for more than 1000 years. I bet it will be much more interesting than movies or games.

Movies and games are forms of art that are handed to you. They are not picked by you. In the case of books, you have to have an innate sense of curiosity to learn new things. That is how you will discover new books. If you are an explorer, much like the Vikings who explored the East to find the gold. And they did find much riches. Imagine what if they would have never explored. The same goes for you and me, with the lack of exploration. Imagine how much gold are we missing from our lives.

Last of all focus and concentration. Movies and YouTube videos are served to you on the basis of what you like to watch. But in the case of books, we don’t have any algorithm serving books. It takes a lot of friction to find good books and read them. Therefore in a world where everything is supposed to be fast. Books can not compete for your focus and concentration, which is decreasing day by day, due to instant social content.

I do not see this as the downfall of society, but instead, an opportunity to explore more. In the early days, we had to travel to new places to explore new ideas but now it is available to us in our hands.

Even now if you think that learning about art and culture is not interesting. It's okay.

But before you go, I want to argue how art and culture will make you a better person.

How does learning about art and culture make you a better person and a programmer?

→ If you want to impress someone, you can easily do that with all the anecdotes you have collected while reading books. Try to inculcate different stories or quotes from writers in your speech and see how it impresses people.

→ It gives you a different perspective. Reading books forces you to see through different perspectives to understand the story. With different perspectives, you can understand different people and view the same people differently. It is an ability to see things from different angles

→ With different perspectives comes the ability to be calm. If you can understand people, you can solve dilemmas. It will give you the ability to calm and think like a philosopher.

These were some benefits of learning about culture and art. I hope you enjoyed this read.

If I have written something wrong please forgive me.

Regards,

Your Captain

Tweets That You Might Love

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ArticlesThat You Might Love

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Goodbye Fellow Developer

I hope you enjoyed this Developer’s Commute. Thank you for joining me.

Your Captain- Hitesh Kohli