Some will argue it shouldn’t even be peanut butter.
Programming was the right vehicle
I realized something fairly late.
Creativity isn’t a talent for me. It’s not a preference either. It’s a need.
I didn’t always have the words for it. But looking back, it explains a lot.
Before I knew what I was looking for
I changed paths more than once.
Different fields, different interests, different attempts at finding something that would stick. At the time, I didn’t call it creativity. I just knew I needed to make things.
Not necessarily useful things. Not impressive ones. Just something that came from me and existed afterward.
There was always this low-level discomfort when I wasn’t creating anything. And a quiet relief when I was.
The map in the passenger seat
When I was a kid, sitting in the car, my mother taught me how to use a road map.
The real skill wasn’t reading it. It was folding it back properly on the first try so it would fit in the glove compartment again. If you know, you know.
Once I understood how the map worked, I said something very casually:
“There should be a map where you can see the car. Where we are.”
This was the late 80s. It made my mother laugh.
In my head, it made sense. I could actually see it. The map, the car, the position updating as you moved.
I remember telling her I wanted to become an inventor. Even now, just writing this, I feel that light tension in my stomach.
She told me it wasn’t really a job. Not in the academic sense. There was no degree for becoming an inventor, no clear path, no box to put it in.
She wasn’t dismissive. She was practical.
But something closed there. Not dramatically, not violently. Just enough to be felt, and then quietly carried forward.
Experimenting before knowing how
When I got my first electric guitar, I didn’t know how to play it, but I played it anyway. I composed, and the next day, I played the same piece again.
I didn’t know how to cook either, but I cooked anyway. When I was a kid, what came out of it, my mother used to call it “experiments”.
And she wasn’t wrong. I would add something just to see what would happen. To see what it would do. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.
All my life, I’ve been experimenting, trying things simply to see what happens, to see what they do.
When creating disappears
When I don’t create, or when I spend too long doing work that doesn’t stimulate me intellectually, something shifts. I don’t just get bored. I slowly get heavier. Quieter. Less present. Over time, it turns into something that looks a lot like depression.
I didn’t understand that at first. I tried to push through it, to be responsible, to fit into roles that looked fine from the outside.
At one point, I was working as a middle manager in aviation security. On paper, it was a serious job. Stable. Structured. Important. In reality, it asked almost nothing of the part of me that needs to build, explore, and figure things out.
I burned out.
That burnout forced a pause I hadn’t allowed myself before. And in that pause, something became obvious: if I kept choosing paths where creation had no place, I was going to keep breaking in the same way.
So I made a turn. Out of all the disciplines, jobs, and careers I could have chosen, I enrolled in a programming program at CEGEP.
It wasn’t an ambitious choice. It was a necessary one.
When programming entered the picture
Programming didn’t arrive as a revelation. It arrived as something that fit.
Creating something that didn’t exist and seeing it take shape. Before, there was nothing. After, there was something.
No spectacle. No fireworks.
Just the satisfaction of having brought something into the world. Even if it was small. Even if it was imperfect. Even if no one else ever saw it.
That was enough.
Creating is not about being special
We tend to put creativity on a pedestal. We imagine geniuses, outliers, people who pull ideas out of thin air. But no one creates from nothing.
Creating is a series of deductions based on what we already know, what we’ve seen, and the mental paths we take when faced with the same stimulus.
When someone says:
“I don’t know how they even thought of that.”
What they usually mean is that they didn’t take the same route.
Different inputs. Different paths. Different results.
That’s it.
Ideas don’t matter without action
I’ve heard this sentence countless times:
“If I had a good idea, I’d build something.”
But the hard part isn’t the idea. It’s doing the work.
You can have great project ideas. If nothing leaves your head, nothing exists. A good idea with no action is effectively the same as no idea at all.
Creativity only becomes real once something crosses the line between thought and reality.
You think you’re not creative? Here’s a thought.
Take 50 people and ask them to make their own version of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
No one will make the same one.
What kind of bread? White, whole grain, rye, baguette, brioche.
Toasted or not? Lightly toasted? Dark? Almost burned?
What kind of peanut butter? Creamy, crunchy, natural, dark roast, with salt, without.
Some will argue it shouldn’t even be peanut butter. Almond, cashew, sunflower seed.
How much do you put on the bread? Room temperature or straight from the fridge? Do you let the toast cool, or do you like it when everything melts together?
Peanut butter first or jelly first?
And the jelly. What kind? How much? One flavor or two? Spread to the edges or kept neatly in the center?
Crust on or off? Sandwich closed or open-faced?
Cut or not? Triangle, square, rectangle?
Add a banana? A drizzle of honey? Is it still a PB&J then?
Do you toast the bread in a toaster, a pan, an oven, over a campfire?
Do you eat it with your hands, or do you dip it in your latte?
Same goal. Same ingredients. A thousand tiny decisions.
You are creative.
Leaving a trace
It doesn’t have to be perfect.
Waiting for perfection is often just a way to delay doing anything at all.
Creating is leaving a trace of our passage. A small mark. A commit. A project. Something that exists now, even if it’s flawed, because of you.
That’s what matters.
Everything else can be improved later.
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