"When we engage in what we are naturally suited to do, our work takes on the quality of play and it is play that stimulates creativity." - Linda Naiman

I like this but IMO it glosses over too much. I've programmed since well before puberty and I can think of SO many programming projects that I want to work on, and have wanted to work on, but I also feel crushed by the limitations of reality. In most companies and scenarios, it's a bunch of roundabout pointless garbage followed by more roundabout pointless garbage, and it's not fun to work on and it's very demoralizing, even for someone who loves to code in their spare time. Maybe no one is suited to that kind of crap? Imagine throwing everything you love and care about down a well and you're the only one who cares. The majority of my job is cleaning up others' mistakes and trying to catch others before they make horrible mistakes and it's difficult because there's too many mistake-makers and not enough mistake-catchers. I used to think this was because I was at a bad company but I've been at quite a few companies now and I think this might just be the way things usually are...