I was writing out a post last night, but decided against it. Now I see this thread, and it's hard to ignore someone not being able to find the answer to such a simple problem.
In my many talks with people from all over the world of different specialties, it seems the most common factor is determination to be exceptional in their field. When I first started out, I felt like an utter brainlet. I tried installing Gentoo (before the meme) and could not shake the crushing feeling of uncertainty and helplessness. There was no wiki, there were no real man pages, there were only mailing lists to parse through and gain the info needed to distinguish the ass from the mouth. Yet I failed the first time through. And the second time through. But then the third time through I got a few steps closer, but not very far. So the fourth time comes around, in between the routine installing Ubuntu because I was CLI-iliterate, and I make some more steps. Something like steps^2. I didn't succeed and I had to install Ubuntu again. Despite all of this, I still had it in mind to install Gentoo just once, if only to quench my ambitions. Well, about a month later comes by, I've been using Ubuntu mixed with learning the CLI, and I now have a good grasp of all the utilities and how the system interacts with the hardware. What make flags are and how to use the Bourne Again Glue Language. Ubuntu was worse than windows and I needed out to the promised "userland." So I pop in the installation media once again. I run through all the usual start stuff, such as working with the BiOS to switch boot order and configuring my network manually (something so seamless and quick, but easy to never have to do by hand with the assortment of tools that move you away from the bare metal, at hand). And everything seems very easy. I'm not uneasy and my ego is intact. Hell, I'm so comfortable using the cli, that I'm installing Gentoo on 3 hours of sleep from just the muscle memory of having to do the steps so many times. Alas, muscle memory only takes me so far, before that dreaded blue compile flags interface is bubbling up memories I've tried to suppress. I feel uncertain if the outcome will be different this time, but my experiences in the past month have taught me to be resourceful and confident in my ability to troubleshoot. I don't really think me writing out five more sentences to fluently wrap up this story, so
>go through compile flags again
>do some things differently from before
>they work and I am able to install Gentoo
>I've beaten one beast, but now I must face another
>Ports
>And so the cycle repeats
>Of being low and climbing high
>But then as I reach one summit, another, taller is uncovered
>Piercing the clouds, you can only know of its height by climbing above them
>And you look around, and things don't seem different
>There are more mountains to climb and they all feel insurmountable
>But you can't know how tall the mountain really is, until you climb it
>You look behind you, the first flight of steps don't seem so hard
I think this feeling comes from never having set out to attain a goal. If you had, you would've learned that most things you put your mind to are possible. The resources are plenty and your brain young and pliable. All the people who do great things in CS, had to have started writing Hello World programs in their programming language of choice. For some it was assembly, for others scratch. It probably didn't even work the first time, so they spent hours debugging a simple print statement. Hours for only "Hello World." But once they'd paid their dues, that knowledge was available to them in mere seconds. They no longer need to debug newer statements, because they know the quirks and can do it right the first time in log previous-time. But now they want to write a simple calculator with a user interface, so they must repeat again. The cycle of being ignorant and confused, then transcending this inferiority into betterment of oneself.