Item — HN Reader

I quite like that response! Goes right to the root of the cause :)

I can somewhat empathize (as I'm sure many others here can), as I often get similar requests from people I interact with on how programming/graphic-design is 'incomprehensible' to them and they 'wish they could do it'. I used to try to offer more practical advice — along the lines of 'Try X online coding resource and see if you like it', but have since defaulted to 'If you really want to do it, then you'll find a way of doing it (and I can help you in any way I can, learning-resource-wise).' which I of course sugar-coat to avoid coming off as condescending (as I obviously do not intend to come across as).

The sentiment that so many people seem to wish they were creative / innovative / more 'logical' is something that I grapple with quite a lot — wondering what levels of 'activation energy' some people need in order to realize they're capable of being creative, and then become self-motivated enough to continue. Like every discipline, it takes years of effort to become good at something, but hopefully only a short fraction of that to 'get into it'.

I think I'll try something similar to your line in future in order to come off as a little more inspiring...

They wish they were a creative person, they don't necessarily wish to do anything creative, it's like with instruments, I'd love to be the kind of person who plays guitar but actually sitting down with a guitar and trying to learn is painful and awkward where programming wasn't. Essentially because there were things I wanted to do that involved programming on a level I could do, writing fizzbuzz was fun, but there's nothing really fun or rewarding to me about playing a 2 chord song while I get used to my fingers hurting, I know it _could_ feel that way but it just doesn't.

I learnt to juggle really quite well in 2016, because I went to a hall once a week with some friends I really liked and practised while we talked, and dropping the balls and constantly fucking up could be fun because we were bonding over it, I don't have something like that for guitar.