RE: How to pick up the crash and move on
Back in the day before ARF's and RTF, we bought kits, basically boxes full of sticks with a neatly folder large complex plan.
Over one cold North Dakota winter, my brother along with my father and I build a Graupner Kwik Fly. After many suppers, the three of us would sit discussing the next steps in construction. We had the wonderful assistance of a WWII (Iwo Jima) veteran machinist who built us aluminum "knee action" spring loaded main landing gear. We spent a lot of time that winter detailing the model, it was beautiful.
Early that spring as soon as the snow melted, we headed out to the field. We had the 27Mhz O.S. Cougar proportional radio system, advanced for that time. My brother the better RC pilot, got the Kwik Fly off the ground easily. After watching him fly for only a few minutes, I begged my brother let me fly, so eventually he handed me the transmitter. This was before buddy boxes and flight simulators. After only a few seconds I got the model inverted, pulled "up" on the stick and the Kwik Fly slammed into the ground, totally destroyed. No reset button.
Back then there were only kits, but even kits are not building from scratch. When you build from scratch or from a kit, you get attached...it's what you worked on, what you did. You can describe the details of construction and how you overcame problems. When you purchase an ARF or an RTF the construction process is totally abstracted. Instead you bolt and fit major parts together in a matter of hours. Crashing is not the same.
The aluminum landing gear from the Kwik Fly hang in my workshop as a reminder of that day and how I felt.