Turns out the reply in my thread telling me the best way to combat not caring about Linux is to care about Linux was absolutely correct.
I picked up a laptop, installed Linux Mint Cinnamon, and I’m already obsessed. I haven’t had this much fun with a PC in a long time and it’s just a cheapo Dell Inspiron 3520.
But… I stopped liking the crack way back when I realized there’s a whole underworld of decent FOSS alternatives to most of the proprietary junk. Now what?!