"NOTHING, literally nothing works anymore" is an alarmist exaggeration, even if you would do the ham-fisted thing of adding your entire home directory to Spotli

"NOTHING, literally nothing works anymore" is an alarmist exaggeration, even if you would do the ham-fisted thing of adding your entire home directory to Spotlight's exclusion list. The sane and logical option is to add only your Pictures directory (or whatever folders you keep images in) to the exclusion list.