Replying to this more as a note to come back and read later, but it's been increasingly clear to me of late that the gold badges, awards, participation ribbons

Replying to this more as a note to come back and read later, but it's been increasingly clear to me of late that the gold badges, awards, participation ribbons and similar don't really work for me, they poorly mimic the real feeling of solving a problem and fixing something. It's superficial. There's something irreplaceable about that that these things just miss entirely. The game is the puzzle you need to solve, it's an issue if treating things like a game rather than work, I guess. Once the puzzle is solved those awards feel like waste and don't matter. I guess that's why I find teaching myself how to code, as poor as I am at it, so addicting. You're constantly puzzle solving and addressing bugs. I don't need acknowledgement for it, they're often personal projects. I find that a lot of people need that sense of acknowledgement, though.