Here is my flame-free question for this thread.

I got MVP for the first time this year. I don't travel for work, only for pleasure. I'd like to get MVP Gold, and generally travel more. I don't have specific destinations in mind, and a very flexible schedule - I would rather choose destinations by deals, as price is the main sensitivity. I've got an Alaska Mileage card and about 60k miles in my balance at the moment. Based in SEA. The question is this:

What is the learning path from a flight idiot who uses Google Flights to find deals, to a flight professional like you wonderful people, who intrinsically understands all this. I get that different tickets have different codes which correspond to....something, beyond just the class. I assume booking time? I do know there is a wiki but if I'm being honest, I'm so overwhelmed by all of it that I'm struggling to find some point of penetration through the veil of overwhelming ignorance on this topic. There seems to be something fundamental I'm missing from this understanding - I'm guessing it has to do with access to specific tools where this information is more relevant/obvious. For example, I see people talking about first-class MVP upgrades on flights costing $15, $35, $110 - whereas I only ever see it at $600+ each way. Is there any way to make this whole experience less kafkaesque? I feel like I'm constantly banging my head against the wall, because I've never once in my life seen anything approaching the flight deals I've heard about. Is it simply that I'm not dedicating enough time to all of this, and that the people who are able to find good deals are simply putting in 3+ hours a day searching through flights to find these hidden gems? Is it because I don't fly enough to need to understand how the greater system operates and how people game it?