I've never lost it. What keeps me going is the beauty of building new things, experimenting with new tools, and keeping the learner mindset.
Side projects are my fire. I can work on things I like and apply all these principles I mentioned.
Been a programmer for more than 20 years, working with Ruby most recently.
I just bought an Arduino R4 Wifi kit to bring the joy of seeing my creations in real life, not only virtually.