I think I already answered my own question - I just need to learn lua really well, and then start over from scratch. Being a total rookie, I have been experiencing endless catch-22's and rabbit holes. If you can't sort the simplest fundamentals, then everything is a black box until you learn what's under the hood. That's why I chose vim/neovim over vscode. Kickstart should be good when I learn how to configure it. Thanks!