There's a certain serenity in it. Maybe its akin to making furniture in a way, working with you hands. Certainly at some point in the future writing C and raycasters may be closer to woodworking than to the status quo of software development.

Sadly raycasters and fiddling with bits is a difficult way to pay for food and rent/mortage. Slinging yaml and json pays better.

Maybe one day I can retire from professional programming and become a hobby programmer...