[bitcrusher]

And this comment is just a subtextual justification for making sure you still feel valued for not doing anything unusual.

This could go round and round. The point is that there SEEMS to be a correlation with people who learn things for the sake of learning them and folks who do well at exercises that test for adjacent skills.

[pvg]

you still feel valued for not doing anything unusual

I didn't really express any thoughts or feelings about doing unusual things, real or perceived. Doing unusual things can be great! Telling yourself you are awesome can also be great! I do think, though, that the type of thought expressed in the "The Python Paradox" and related writings (say, the bit about blub language programmers) is pretty lousy. It was lousy then and has aged even more poorly.