I switched to an Evoluent vertical mouse for its ergonomics, but the feature I like the most is the middle click button! It has 3 buttons for left, middle and right click, a vertical scroll wheel and two navigation buttons for back and forward (that I never use). Find it really comfy to use in Blender and elsewhere.
Thanks for sharing your story here! I think your comments and answers are thoughtful and well stated. I don't share the Buddhist worldview but can relate anyways in terms of art. When learning to model in 3D I started looking at things around me differently. Instead of looking at a chair and in my head thinking "chair", I looked at it as a shape and a surface with a texture (not thinking those words, just looking). This opened up a world of beauty, not only in natural objects, but also in man made things, especially in metals. The key change was to not categorize or label the things but instead become vulnerable to their features and let them move me. It had unexpected but pleasant everyday effects, such as stopping at a door I always used and in awe contemplating the door handle.
Yes, I had a really hard time getting used to the UI. Later found the ModernUI Workbench plugin which made it a whole lot better.
https://wiki.freecad.org/ModernUI_Workbench
edit: This plugin seems unmaintained and Ondsel is probably the way to go now if you want a better organized UI.
I've heard Roblox get recommended as a way of "playing" into programming. It's a multiplayer game platform scriptable in Lua. Doesn't seem like it supports any Nintendo devices, but is available on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Xbox, and PlayStation. https://create.roblox.com/
If you want it to run smoothly with video streaming and sane thermals/fan noise, I'd leave it with macOS. For NAS I'd instead buy a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 and set it up with an external USB HD and Raspberry Pi OS.