Good ol' buttcraft 
I don't really mean in terms of mods, but like go off if you wanna. I'm a lifelong Minecraft enjoyer, played it basically from Alpha right up to release, and dropped off around 1.2ish. I've played it in bursts again over the years, but the more weird stuff they add the more weirded out I feel. I just wanna build houses with sloping rooves, sheesh... It does kind of make me wanna just give up and play Legacy Console on Wii U or something weird.
[Minecraft boomer alert I guess]
I don't totally hate what they've done with the game itself but it's clear that the launcher is a lost cause. Plus how does Java chug this badly on a Ryzen 2600? I have to choose between a performance mod that makes the game run, or pad support, because one of them uses Fabric and the other uses the other thing. Remember when Minecraft mods was just dumping .jar files into the game's directory?
I mean to ask, what is the way cool kids play Minecraft nowadays? Are there cool alternative launchers or modpaks or a specific version or whatever I can play that's cooler than Microsoft Occupied Minecraft and are more fun?
To me, the correct way to play Minecraft is with a friend and pursuing silly, enjoyable goals.
Something I had a lot of fun doing is playing as "The Heart Tree" while my partner tried to support me. Essentially, I chose a tree I really liked, cut it down except for its lowest block (now designated "The Heart Block"), and I always would have to be touching or very close to logs which descend from the original tree.
I also had fun playing Modded Skyblock with my friend from high school, focusing on guiding progression and decorating (since I knew how to progress a lot better than he did), but not making too much progress personally.
To me, I intrinsically feel a drive to constantly chase progression, but ultimately find myself more fulfilled when I try and lay back and weave progression with genuine attention and enjoying the "unproductive" things, looking to make nifty floor patterns and building materials and interacting with friends.