Learn by Programming or Learn Programming to Program?

When I was younger I learned to program because I wanted to write a program. I never wanted to "Learn C" I just kept on reading chapters of K&R so that I could write my program (Just a small game). Now, decades later, I just finished reading "The Rust Programming Language" with no real desire to write a program -- I just wanted to read the book. Great language but I have this sort of empty feeling -- kind of like "What now". I wonder how many people suffer from this. I'll likely will never get paid to write Rust, and given I find programming to be the the least lucrative way to put my tech skills to use, I guess I'll likely never get to use Rust. How many people learn languages that they will never get to use?