Comment by MarkusQ

To be honest, I had the same reaction when I started using high-level languages. I wasn't touching the metal (certainly not as much as I had been when solving problems sometimes involved things like repurposing unused bits on a multiplexed bus talk to a new peripheral) and it somehow felt less real. But pretty quickly the range of problems I was addressing shifted, and everything clicked back into focus. I'd never _really_ been touching the metal and I always had been (and still was) in touch with it. Ditto giving up stick shift. And I imagine at some point artists felt the same thing when they transitioned to commercially prepared oil paint.