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Comment by paulvs | Hacker News Reader

Programming, maths & science, etc. are acquired tastes. Not things you can enjoy from the get-go. I think many friends and family of mine would make far better programmers than I, or great scientists, but they've never had the need to venture out of their comfort zone to try something new. The age of constant distractions and an easy lifestyle is not conducive to breaking out of the norm. The things I enjoy most took me years of studying.

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> Programming, maths & science, etc. are acquired tastes. Not things you can enjoy from the get-go.

I dunno, I enjoyed all three from the get-go. Ballroom dance I suspected I would enjoy, but it took me a while to get to the point where it wasn't just work to do it (even though I enjoyed watching it.)

I know plenty of people for whom those things are flipped. I don't think "what you can enjoy from the get-go" and "what takes more time to learn you can enjoy" is constant from person to person.

In my case, I didn't expect to enjoy learning Paraguayan traditional dancing, but it sure was fun and I'm glad I tried it. Like another poster pointed out, it's the hard work that comes first (overcoming the fear, or plugging away at the books), then comes the satisfaction. I think it must feel lonely being a great mathematician for example, knowing that everyone else has settled for less, and that only you and a few others have even a slight understanding of the universe.

Math is mostly about communication with other people.

Only recently have computer proofs become somewhat accepted. The holy grail is still to find simple proofs to interesting problems to enlighten people.

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