I'm only half-kidding.
> when I manage to make some random compute method a million percent more performant after hours
That can certainly be exhilarating, but there are many ways to feel engaged and challenged. Many different ways to feeling you are accomplishing things, e.g. even boring non-heroic code but that solves an interesting problem for non-technical end-users can be extremely satisfying.
For me, the age of GenAI-assisted/directed coding brings new joy, curiosity, to my world, and I'm there for it.