Everyone’s answer is different.
At the core, software allows me to understand the world I live in.
Why?
(1) software is the closest I can get to mathematical modelling of the real world.
(2) software lets me test my models very fast.
To be precise, software exists to interact with the real world that is messy and confused and broken. And to write software you have to create these simplifications and these abstractions. And while you create them you begin to acquire real insight about how the world actually works.
Unlike mathematics or physics or other forms of science, what I love about software is that you can test out your simplifications immediately. There is no intellectual argument or complex experiment that needs to be executed. The program runs, and the data starts to flow.
Because software allows for iteration, understanding can come quickly.