[JoeCortopassi]

I think the best way to understand/appreciate javascript as a language is to A) separate it from the DOM, and B) take a functional programming focus

Too many times, when people complain about javascript, what they are really complaining about is the hectic nature of web development. You have three trillion dollar companies (Google/Chrome, Microsoft/Edge, Apple/Safari) actively fighting over agreed upon standards for how the dom is rendered and manipulated. Try and learn any language in that environment, and you'll have a very frustrating time

Why functional programming? Javascript was one of the earlier mainstream languages to support passing around functions as first class citizens, and it's often an aspect of the language that gets downplayed. By and large, javascript sits at the sweet spot of allowing you to do cool functional programming concepts, without all the strictness and verbosity of a language like Haskell. Is that a good thing? It depends, obviously. But for the sake of "Change my mind", this is where I bet you'll start looking at it in a different light

I'm not saying it's the best/one-true language. It's just another cool tool to have on your tool belt