It's a common problem when people have tied up their sense of self-worth in tweaking with janky, broken stuff, rather than on the things you can create with that. See also bitter, mediocre photographers who revile folks for being "fauxtographers" because they're making a living from photography on Instagram instead of fucking around with expensive lenses and Photoshop.

My kids know a lot less about the internals of a tech stack than I do, but they create a lot more things with the tools at their disposal than I do. Unlike the author, I think they're in a better place than I am.