Anyone else the meta — what would you do? [v3]

Posting this here because the relevant subreddit has gotten too noisy lately.

I want to write something more comprehensive about this later but starting with a quick post to gather thoughts. Posting this here because the relevant subreddit has gotten too noisy lately.

Quick context: I am relatively new to this and trying to find my footing. I tried three different approaches and none of them felt quite right. Posting this here because the relevant subreddit has gotten too noisy lately.