When I was a kid, I was damn proud of "discovering" Sub7 and using it to fuck with all of my friends, teaching them to do the same. Years later, I would "discover" how to read assembly by reading a book on it and then "discover" pirated copies of various disassemblers online and use them to reverse engineer games, write keygens, etc. Years later, I would write my first 0day exploit and then eventually make a whole career out of that.

But I was just as proud of discovering and using Sub7 to mess around as a kid as I was popping my first shell. I just knew more at each stage; the act of 'discovery' felt little different, though.