Mixed feels on modal editing

I’m at a familiar stage of my cycle with Neovim. It goes something like this: Pick Neovim back up after some number of months or years. It’s so fun! Feel the power, tweak the configs, install the packages, learn some more tricks. It’s nearly all I can think about. Some weeks later, the honeymoon period begins to fade, and it starts to feel normal instead of new and shiny. Inevitably, something in my customized config isn’t working right, and debugging it feels more like a chore now than an exciting side quest. [current status] Start to wonder, is modal editing really any better for my use cases? Switch back to non-modal editing, embracing the Emacs movements baked into macOS. Feel content. Eventually, get itchy feet and return to (1). I write a lot, but not a lot of code. Most of my writing is note-taking, chat messages, emails, documentation, blog posts, etc. I know it’s annoying to say “here’s what an LLM said,” but here’s what an LLM (Claude) said. I found it useful because it’s…