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I just picked up a lap steel guitar (sweet!) and they're usually tuned open.  The slide helps to not have to learn chord shapes, but it's fun.

I definitely think peoples brains work differently and that leads to different approaches.  For example, using your switch to the major and minor pent, I look at that simply as the same scale,  just resolving on a different note.  For example, if I can play A minor pent I can also play C major pent using the exact same pattern, just by starting on the second note of the A minor pent.   The modal relationship between the two keys makes that possible, and I don't have to learn anything new.

It's an incredibly simple way to think about it.  Instead memorizing 77 (seven modes * 11 keys) different modal scales and their associated chord structures, you only need memorize one.   If you know how the major (Ionian mode) scale fits together, you know all the modes, too.  And if you can play them in one key, you can play them in all keys.

Modal scales work the same way, only different. 

The chord structures will shift along with the half step intervals.   The dominant 7 on the tonic for myxolidian is only there because it is based on the V (dominant) of the major scale.  It's why you play the III diminished, too.

The inevitable end of all junkies is that they either get clean, or they die.

If you can play a major scale, start there.  Doesn't matter which one.  The first note of that scale will have many names.  You will hear it called the root, the tonic, the I, but its the same thing.  Play that note.  Then play that major chord.

Play the scale to the fourth note.  It will also have many names.  You may hear it called the sub-dominant or the IV.   Play that note.  Then play that major chord.

Play the scale to the fifth note.  It will have many names too, like dominant, or the V.  Play that note, then likewise play that major chord.

You have just figured out how to play a rudimentary version of most of what you hear on the radio.   If you can figure out what key it's in by fiddling on the fretboard, you can probably figure the rest of the chords out without too much trouble.

If you can't play a major scale, check in with the stickied posts in this forum for some guidance.

I could fill a book.

Cosmic Timescale.   You should have it figured out by the time the sun runs out of hydrogen.

It seems that way because the are.  TV ads are highly compressed (as in run through an audio compressor) to give them more apparent volume.  I have a good friend that is an audio engineer in LA, and does a lot of audio work for TV.  I asked him if he was the one responsible for all that compression.  "I smash the $@!& out of that stuff."

Scales.  Learn them, live them, play them.

This is me exactly.  When I see some mom struggling with her kids, I have an empathetic reaction.  When my kids get out of line, my fuse burns right down to the nub in about two seconds.  Fortunately for me, I have pretty good kids.

I always say I play cheap guitars because while I have a $10,000 head, I only have $10 hands.