When I was in school and college, I ask “Why are we learning this concept in the first place?” all the time. I won’t learn it until I can see a real use of it. It’s good in one perspective because you save time and just learn what matters at that time. But there is another perspective which tells you that you are losing lot just by skipping things because you don’t see a real use.
I kinda started seeing the latter perspective these days. Maybe I’m maturing. Allow me to explain.
Most of the time, we move forward with no map. Just insticts and random urges. Something catches your eye, you follow it. You pick up a book you may never finish. You dive into a rabbit hole on a Sunday evening and forget why you even started. At the time, none of it feels connected. Just scattered dots floating around.
But then, one day, usually when you’re not looking for it, something clicks. You see the pattern. Not forward, but in reverse.
Steve Jobs once signed up for a Calligraphy course in a college. Calligraphy is an art and study about fonts and handwriting. It didn’t helped him in any ways at that point. It just interested him, so he went for it. He acquired a skill that is not connected to anything in his life. He basically created a dot which is not connected to anything.
But later, when he built Macintosh, he came up with the idea of supporting multiple fonts. No computer at that time had an option to let the user change whatever the font they want. Users can even customize the size and properties of fonts.
In early 1980s, the new Lisa Computer (precursor of Macintosh) was on the verge of launching. In an all-hands meeting, Steve Jobs found out that engineers didn’t prioritize support for these multiple fonts/typefaces. An employee (early engineer) stepped-forward and told that “pretty fonts” are not that really important. Steve just fired him at that spot.
Although, this event wasn’t documented anywhere verifiable, it kinda tells a story.
Macintosh project got a pretty good fonts support that made many customers happy. But all of these started when Steve signed up for that Calligraphy course. The dot which he created in his college was now connected in a certain and important position in his career.
In his 2005 Stanford comencement speech, he said,
If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.
He went to say that,
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
I watch that speech a lot, I’d suggest you to watch it as well. It’s just 15mins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
This is what I’m feeling lately a lot. I remember one morning I just woke up and decided to learn about graphs in math. Just learned how to draw it in a graph sheet. I went on learning functions in math. I just didn’t see any real use-case at that point in my life. It was just fascinating concept for me. I just created a dot.
Years later, I decided to study Machine learning. When I stepped into Linear algebra, it’s all graphs. You don’t necessarily need graph to work with Linear algebra. But graphs help you visually see the function, and you can visually obtain the solution too. It felts intuitive. I didn’t have to memorize formulae, I just drew everything as graphs and it all made sense.
Somehow, the dot of learning to draw graphs connected to my education at one point. The same thing helped me visually understand Calculus. Nowadays, graph is one of the most utilized tool under my belt.
I’ve seen this play out in other parts of life too. Back when I used to DJ more regularly, I got obsessed with transitions. Not just mixing songs, but understanding why a certain beat felt smooth or why a tempo shift made people stop dancing. I’d experiment late at night with layering samples, trying weird combinations (I once tried to mix Karnatic and Folk, lol), changing tempos mid-track just to see what clicked. I wasn’t thinking about anything. It just interested me, so I learned it. I created a dot.
But over time, I realized how that obsession with “flow”, started showing up in my software engineering career as well. When I design user journeys, I think about transitions the same way. How does someone move from one page to another? Where’s the drop? Does it feel jarring or natural?
Even the way I structure blog posts or talks. It all about the rhythm, pause and flow nowadays.
DJing taught me how to feel the room, to anticipate, to listen deeply. And weirdly, that skill became just as useful in career.
I could add more and more examples such as understanding Chess, understanding Game theory, etc.,
I’m not saying everything has meaning or that every random thing will lead to a breakthrough, A lot of dots stay unconnected, and that’s fine as well. But once in a while, something from the past shows up at the right time. And it feels kinda of magical.
So yeah, if something interests you, chase the rabbit holes. Learn the thing even if you don’t “really need”. Do something just because it feels right and interesting.
Take detours. Collect dots. You don’t need a reason right now.
One day, you’ll look back and smile at how neatly it all fit together. Like it was meant to be, even though it never felt that way while living it.
Dots will connect backwards!
