Sometimes it’s worth trying to rationalize hobbies – although, probably, it’s a strange thing to do. But I have an engineering mindset, so please excuse me.
So, from hobbies, I can clearly identify painting (with oils) and piano. Everything else I do is extremely irregular, without any significant level, and doesn’t really deserve a mention.
If I have to choose between these two, then in terms of effort/result ratio or hours spent/skill level, painting is far ahead. In terms of money spent/skill level, at first glance, piano seems to be ahead (buy the keys once and that’s all), but in reality, ten hours of piano without a paid teacher is equivalent to an hour with a paid teacher, and without any teacher at all, you’ll quickly hit a “ceiling” that will be difficult to overcome, as wrong techniques are already ingrained. However, this ceiling is not exactly low. In painting, a paid teacher can be largely (about 90%) substituted by YouTube if desired. In piano, only about 40% can be substituted. After a year of daily piano practice, you can surprise your friends on Facebook, but a year of daily painting practice can reach a quite good level and even impress professionals. I still have eight months to go until a year, and I paint maybe once a week, so it will take longer in my case. Piano, with the same effort, would take forever. In other words, the piano learning curve is significantly more gradual.
What does painting provide? Why is it needed for an engineer? There are several reasons.
Firstly, the ability to think graphically. At a recent meeting, my colleagues complimented me for drawing a very complex and organically appearing functional system architecture diagram on the fly. I always thought this was a general skill, but it turns out it’s not. For many, it’s a separate type of work that requires focus, and during which one must think about layout and composition.
Second. I don’t know any other activity besides painting, or maybe sculpture, where the brain is loaded with an intense internal dialogue during the process. Programmers will understand me, but this only happens to you and I during rare cases of complex troubleshooting or writing a complicated algorithm in one go. In painting, it can’t be otherwise. Is this spot lighter or not? Are these lines parallel? Do these angles match? Where to shift the red – towards burgundy or pink?
In piano, there is none of that. But there is something else in piano that is absent in painting. In piano, you gradually learn to act ahead of the brain. There, decisions must be made before they turn into words and pass through the brain. Drivers will understand. But this is not about mechanical memory. That’s actually harmful. It’s about, for instance, playing a chord that’s not even sounded in the head yet, but follows the one that just entered the ears. The hands press on something, and then the brain catches up.
Third. Painting provides an interesting skill – paying attention to the distinctive features of familiar objects and forms. You look at a person, and their eyebrows and the lower lines of their cheeks form a neat X. Or a slightly raised bridge of the nose. Or a protruding chin. Or the shadows under the eyes. Or huge ears. For 90% of people, these are unimportant details that they overlook in everyday life. You start noticing that indeed there is a reflection in the shadow part. And that there is no pure white or black. And then it all starts catching your eye. Sometimes this is not a plus 😉
That’s why it’s interesting to learn something new. It opens new doors into how the world around us works. And this is something engineers should know and understand well, so that their work brings more pleasure both to them and to the people for whom they do their work.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 