Regarding your broader point, I think this immensely important and a very powerful framing to use in many different pursuits. I'd describe it as always striving

Regarding your broader point, I think this immensely important and a very powerful framing to use in many different pursuits. I'd describe it as always striving to acquire and refine the deepest cores of conceptual understanding that can be accurately and meaningfully applied in the widest set of scenarios. And then for two equally useful mental models, prefer the more concise and accessible one. Kind of like the concept of "parsimony" as used in the physical sciences. In software, one begins to see where "best practices" come from and how they can be valuable, but also where such heuristics break down. Getting philosophical, I believe this is a lifelong search -- we will never reach full understanding. Perfect truth is irreducible, so the best we can hope for is an strong approximation.