tl;dr: The author's great-great-grandfather, a farrier in rural France, pivoted to become a mechanic when cars arrived, preserving his underlying purpose—helping people get around—even as the technology changed. Drawing a parallel to developers anxious about AI, the author argues that what truly motivates most engineers is building things and solving problems, not writing code itself. The lesson: let go of the "how" to hold on to the "why."