People who don't do programs sometimes overestimate the difficulty in it*. Off course the problem i that most programmers get going way out there. Mainly this is because programming has a tendency to build upon itself, so once you do a program your next one builds on that and that and that. So at the end of the day you get VERY complex pieces of code. In a way programming and scripting is a high investment gain pursuit, where each investment makes you better and the cycle feeds itself.
To answer your question, no i don't think you need anything. Maybe food and some shelter. As a usual comment id say it helps, in fact i once knew a office secretary that did her own scripts, her productivity was as high as a ARMY of them. She didn't write a lot of scripts tough (maybe 1-5 lines every week, this becomes 1300 in 10 years) but still it was a significant factor in her effectiveness. So id say nearly everybody whose job even remotely touches a computer benefit greatly form knowing this. See even a relatively simple one line script can make the difference between 6 hours of work and 1 minute of waiting.
I don't see much of the more sepecialized things you can do with particles getting done without a knowledge of some scripting tough.
*in fact programming is about things so simple its sometimes hard to even think that simple thats the problem.