I'm in a similar position and took up coding random projects for micro controllers (e.g. Arduino & ESP32) precisely so that I could get a kick out of writing sm

I'm in a similar position and took up coding random projects for micro controllers (e.g. Arduino & ESP32) precisely so that I could get a kick out of writing small amounts of functioning code that did stuff in a single evening. I was inspired to do this by somebody else who did exactly the same (although working in industrial design).