&gt; My brain just refuses to fully &quot;grok&quot; them. I still don&#x27;t see why they&#x27;re so awesome. I know I use them day-to-day - LINQ, the &quot;List&quot; abstraction (supposedly also a monad??) but I just don&#x27;t see why it&#x27;s important to understand them on this whole new fundamentally different level.<p>Why do you want to &quot;grok&quot; them?  Just use them.  In fact I&#x27;d say there isn&#x27;t much more to grokking them than just using them.