>> I just want to have some fun writing something without headaches, and that is seemingly less and less easy to achieve today
Pick something that sounds refreshing and fun to you. A few recommendations for you: make a game for a fantasy console like pico8, walk through an adafruit embedded project, or get interested in the front end / design part of web development (look through dribbble for inspiration). You don't necessarily need much CSS and it's not hard to learn anyway.
>> I feel like there aren't really any good options in software development any more. It's always one big compromise with lots of possible decision fatigue. Every direction has drawbacks.
It seems most of your dissatisfaction comes from whining about the tech stack. Either focus less on the technology stack and more about the end product, or stop attaching emotion to decisions that are best made logically. It's okay if you choose options that have drawbacks if every option has drawbacks. There's no such thing as a silver bullet. Choosing the wrong option is rarely going to kill your project and you can always change directions later so breathe easy.
Pick something that sounds refreshing and fun to you. A few recommendations for you: make a game for a fantasy console like pico8, walk through an adafruit embedded project, or get interested in the front end / design part of web development (look through dribbble for inspiration). You don't necessarily need much CSS and it's not hard to learn anyway.
>> I feel like there aren't really any good options in software development any more. It's always one big compromise with lots of possible decision fatigue. Every direction has drawbacks.
It seems most of your dissatisfaction comes from whining about the tech stack. Either focus less on the technology stack and more about the end product, or stop attaching emotion to decisions that are best made logically. It's okay if you choose options that have drawbacks if every option has drawbacks. There's no such thing as a silver bullet. Choosing the wrong option is rarely going to kill your project and you can always change directions later so breathe easy.