Having just written about learning to stand on one leg, I’ve been reflecting on the art world vs. gainful employment in software.
art pays in negative money
The most money I earned as a modern dancer: $800 a month for six months of the year.
art words < programmer words
Dancing is a highly intuitive, visual, sensation laden experience. Working dancers spend much of their time learning choreography. You watch somebody else do the steps. You do them. Not that way. This way. You feel what it’s like to do the whole dance. Eventually you’ve learned the dance. We never wrote anything down. Most of the discourse between dancers was only barely verbal–we showed each other what we meant.
As a programmer, I spent all my time in text. Reading documentation, reading code. As a manager my time is split between text and words and white boards. The whole thing is performed slumped in a chair. I never get sweaty, and my feet don’t hurt at the end of the day.
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