I'm similar. I've narrowed down my learning to two things I need: - Principles for how things fit together. This is similar to your comment about digging int

I'm similar. I've narrowed down my learning to two things I need: - Principles for how things fit together. This is similar to your comment about digging into the assembly. Understanding how something is built is one way of determining the principles. - Understanding of why something is needed. I still remember back to first learning to program and not understanding pointers. I pushed through in reading the book I was using and eventually they talked about how to use it and it finally clicked.