capturing fireflies
on creativity, self-trust & curiosity
There are two ways I’ve lived with ideas: catch them, or destroy them.
For much of my life, I was adept at hamstringing my own creativity. Whenever an idea would bubble up, I would batter it down with objections: “what if it went wrong? What makes you special? You aren’t creative! Who cares about this?”
Beneath the surface, I struggled deeply with fear, identity and creativity—with being seen. I spent the first 20-something years of my life trying to blend in and most certainly not stand out. Gods below, never stand out. At the wild age of four, my family held a birthday party for me at a jam-packed waterpark. After splashing around in the wave pool and going down all of the mostly-kid-friendly slides, it was time to sing happy birthday. My mom, ever aware of my fear of attention, began singing softly—almost whispering.
My head whipped around, blood going cold. “Stop! No!”
If my family is to believed… the event ended shortly after I started screaming, “STOP. SINGIIIING!”
Whew.
That moment was one of many in a template that lasted nearly 30-years: if something might draw attention, snuff it out fast.
As an adult, this dogged me in new ways. Decisions needed to be backed by expert approval. Preferences were based on group consensus. How many times have I searched something then added “reddit” on the end? I wonder how many decisions I’ve made because of a few dozen upvotes… and if the random internet strangers know this. The entire creative centre of my mind had been boarded up and taped over for so long that it was hidden beneath a thick, oppressive layer of dust.
In the early days of summer 2023, I started writing in earnest. I’d done the odd bit before, but now it was all the time. Daily posts, journals, paid ghostwriting, newsletters, chirping other hockey fanbases on Reddit—you name it, I was doing it. There was so much of me in this writing, but there was still a lingering belief that my opinions couldn’t stand on their own legs. I always needed to quote others, reference experts, find the perfect quote from a well-known author.
Until, after enough journaling and searching, a switch flipped. Patterns emerged that were hard to ignore. I was tired of outsourcing my creativity to others! Tired of seeking opinions of “experts”, who were often anything but. They just had more experience putting themselves out there. Maybe they were just willing to brave the shame of being ridiculed by e-strangers. They also probably didn’t cry when people sang happy birthday to them! (I am proud to admit I haven’t cried at Happy Birthday in at least 28-years).
A change this big can’t be captured in a handful of words. I’d have a better chance of catching fog with my hands. What matters is this: ideas flow through me freely now. They don’t get their wings clipped before lift off.
“I wonder if I could do x like this?”
“Why didn’t they design it this way?”
and my favourite (and the biggest rabbit hole):
“I wonder if ____ is possible…”
For the first time in my life, I started catching these ideas—without crushing them under the weight of objections. No judgment, no dismissal. Just a pen, a notebook and a simple question: “what if?” In 2024, my red-dotted notebook had become a sanctuary for an… eclectic mass of ideas. Sometimes, they’re business model canvases. Other times, they are hastily drawn attempts to capture what my mind has conjured.
Exhibit A—AirDnD. A cabin-in-the-woods getaway for an elevated tabletop/board game experience. This started as a conversation between friends, then spun into a Pinterest rabbit hole and culminated with three pages of sketches on design elements. I couldn’t find a single AirBnB designed for this!
Exhibit B—BnB meets Nordic Spa. This is all about the elements… cold-warm-hot. I imagine a minimalist approach, simple + clean designs. Wife and I love these kind of things.
Exhibit C—the backyard trebuchet. I imagine my toddler in our yard, cackling as he orders another projectile fired from our wooden siege engine at the enemy some blocks. Admittedly, this one needs some safety nets.
Exhibit D—DFY gardens. Design, build and install simple systems. 3-bin compost, basic irrigation, low raised beds, and so on. This is all about myth busting reasons why people say gardening is too challenging.
Exhibit E—bite-sized apps. I’m a business + data analyst by day, I’ve heard 1,000,001 tech problems people struggle with. There’s a fella on LinkedIn who kept converting Yen to USD, so they created an atomic app that did it with a tap of a finger. Simple, effective, mildly useful.
Rather than looking at these ideas as random curiosities, I’ve started looking at them like breadcrumbs. There are threads connecting them—like woodworking, imagination, mindfulness, embodied living, and so on. They can be answers to frustrations, or explorations of wonder.
Not all our ideas are possible. Some pose an obvious financial roadblock. And yet, they’re fun to explore. They feel good to explore. Perhaps the most important bit was simply writing them down. Ideas can be like fireflies—I needed a practice to catch them in a mason jar, before they faded away.
At the risk of falling back on my old appeal to authority problem, I’m going to quote a line from Steven Pressfield (The Legend of Bagger Vance & The War of Art). He says that inspiration isn’t for the lucky, it comes to those who show up: “The Muses favour sweat, more than brilliance.” If ideas are gifts from the Muses, then they must have cursed me for how ruthlessly I used to cut their gifts down.
Curiosity and creativity care not one whit for perfection. They aren’t judges of quality. When I stopped crushing ideas and gave myself space to explore, it turns out I was betting on myself. Each captured idea was a tiny vote of trust for my taste, my ability to create. A budding rebellion against that age-old fear of being judged—of being seen.
Our ideas don’t need to be life-changing to be worth having. They aren’t all going to make us rich, or happy, or successful.
This feels like a fuller, more connected way to live. Ideas are like capturing fireflies as a kid on a warm summer night, for no other reason than the joy of seeing their glow. Exploring them, testing them and building them simply because it’s fun.
Even if—especially if—they lead us down endless rabbit holes.