You can use similar arguments to bash on any other profession: the median life of a lawyer, md, medical researcher, engineer, architect etc. is just as boring and unpleasant.
The whole point of life is to get your life as far from the median-zone as possible, because all the fun is in the extremes (it can be the extreme of algorithm design, software engineering or maybe another extreme that is the edge of programming with another field, like social science - an such an "edge" extreme may actually require very basic coding skills!). Even if you're a farmer, you can find the extreme zones of farming do some kind of "extreme/experimental farming". The "fun" part with programming is that you can easily bounce from "median zone" to extremes, and even easily fall in the negative ones when you end up not even having rent money...
The whole point of life is to get your life as far from the median-zone as possible, because all the fun is in the extremes (it can be the extreme of algorithm design, software engineering or maybe another extreme that is the edge of programming with another field, like social science - an such an "edge" extreme may actually require very basic coding skills!). Even if you're a farmer, you can find the extreme zones of farming do some kind of "extreme/experimental farming". The "fun" part with programming is that you can easily bounce from "median zone" to extremes, and even easily fall in the negative ones when you end up not even having rent money...