Q:

Deciphering an Excel macro; Range. Select, then Range. Activate, then Selection. ClearContents? 

This is the code I have in a [very involved] spreadsheet someone made at work: 
Sub ClearSheet()
'
' Macro5 Macro
'
'
Range("E9,E2:F7,C14:I39,Q41:Q55,N14:N39,N41:N55").Select
Range("Q14").Activate
Range("E9,E2:F7,C14:I39,C41:I55,Q41:Q55,N14:N39,N41:N55,L41:L55").Select
Range("Q41").Activate
Selection. ClearContents

I have never so much as glanced at an excel macro before, so I had to look some things up.  I get that the first range is selected and then Q14 becomes the active cell.  Then that is done again, with some overlapping sections, and Q41 is made into the active cell.  All to have the selections just be cleared out.  I'm sure this is a simple question but I don't understand what the point is of the .Activates, or why someone would separate the sections that need to be cleared into two separate segments?  From my very limited understanding, I thought Activate was something like focus, where that is now that cell that has focus for ease of use on the users side.  But what good is that if the focus changes from the first cell to the second cell in a millisecond?  
All I know is that I need these cells:
E9,E2:F7,C14:I39,N14:N39,C41:I55,L41:L55,N41:N55,Q41:Q55

to clear out when this code is run, and if this code is doing something in addition to that, what is it?  
Is this just poorly written or am I too ignorant to understand?  ~the novel~

A:

Use 
Range("E9,E2:F7,C14:I39,N14:N39,C41:I55,L41:L55,N41:N55,Q41:Q55").ClearContents

Better still specify the workbook and worksheet to do this in e.g.
ThisWorkbook. Worksheets("Sheet1").Range("E9,E2:F7,C14:I39,N14:N39,C41:I55,L41:L55,N41:N55,Q41:Q55").ClearContents

Using sheet 1 as an example.  You want to be sure to be in the right sheet before clearing stuff out.  If you don't specify, and leave as just range, then the currently Active sheet is used. 
In the code you talked about the each selection was shifting focus from the prior making the prior selections redundant. 
Using Select, in particular, is not generally a good thing, it means 'touching' the sheet which incurs potentially unnecessary performance overhead. 
As mentioned in comments, and indicated by ' Macro5 Macro, this is, at least in part, likely all, macro generated code.  Macro meaning "many".  Many instructions in this case.  The macro recorder is verbose to say the least.  It records everything your are doing including scrolling, mistakes in range selections etc.  It is a good learning tool, and can often give useful insights into some objects and methods.  The valuable skill is learning which elements to keep and how to turn this verbose code into structured programming.