You are most definitely smart enough. And your instincts are correct. Category Theory is not an efficient thinking tool for thinking about software. You can use

You are most definitely smart enough. And your instincts are correct. Category Theory is not an efficient thinking tool for thinking about software. You can use it for that of course (monads were originally modelled in CT) but there are much better tools out there that will get you there faster (Abstract Algebra, Reduction Machines and State Machines for example). There are a few (usually Haskell) people that love to make claims about the need for you to learn CT. They are wrong. It’s that simple.