When you reach that point, that level -- a coding apex, and the universe has found you. That feeling as you code, where the ideas, the advanced concepts, they flow out of your mind like beautiful and wonderful poetry. And you smile, because all is well, and you have created something beautiful in a world that needs more beauty. Also, it's lunchtime.

"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."

Said to a new team member before they embarked on a journey of pain as I took them through a huge web app made with jQuery (think: 10K lines of DOM manipulation horror), WCF, and sadness.