There's a kind of debugging I call "flailing"—a desperate, theory-less "jiggling the handle" one can stumble into after extended failure. Found myself there today on hour 3 of JS build system BS. In such situations I find Pirsig's treatise on "gumption traps" a good antidote.
Conversation
(from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, pp 309-332)
Replying to
Pirsig! Thanks for quoting that! I always thought his incidental ideas were better than his big theses.