Is Learning to Paint a Waste of Time?

I used to think painting, music, that whole category, were kind of pointless — that science was the thing that actually mattered. But art is arguably more fundamental than that, precisely because humans are social creatures.

Here’s a thought experiment: imagine someone drops you off alone in Europe with nothing and says “figure out how to survive.” Say you’re the world’s foremost expert in quantum electrodynamics — that alone won’t feed you; you’d likely starve. But if you know how to paint, you can produce something and sell it. If you know how to play an instrument, you can busk, make some money, even make friends along the way.

Science is obviously valuable in the aggregate — it’s how civilization advances. But on a purely individual, day-to-day survival level, a practical creative skill can be worth more than deep technical knowledge nobody around you has an immediate use for.