funny, 20 years of vim/evil here and I feel like I never really think about the motions anymore, except maybe when building a macro

I’m in the same boat. I’ve internalized Vim keybindings so much that there’s no friction between thinking and doing on the screen. If I want to place the cursor on the next line, move to the end and add a semicolon, then jump to the end of the file, I just do it. My pet theory is that because Vim keybindings are unintuitive, developing proficiency required building muscle memory, which offloads cognitive load from my brain to my fingers so text editing becomes mechanical rather than cognitive.

I’m the opposite. Emacs never really stick for me, after 3 tries I gave up. Vim is the way.