I think the ship has sailed on starting learning JavaScript. There are just so many frameworks/tools/preprocessors/libraries. I wouldn't know where to start and it'll be years before I'll be better than mediocre.

Don't start with any framework or library. Just start with vanilla js. There are good books about that. Like the "you don't know js" series.

??? I use js for graph stuff with chart.js which is loads of fun and is really useful. We pass a lot of the data by json so it made sense to do this. Surely you just need an in, something to use it for. Then get good at that? Isn't that how everyone learns js?

As kanduvisla says, focus on vanilla js, then a few commonly used libraries such as jquery, anything else you can learn for the particular job in hand - there's no possible way you could intimately know every js library and framework, but a good founding knowledge means you can pick them up quickly when you do need then

Welcome to devRant! Start at Hello World. If you apply yourself it will not take years to get mediocre. May by the end of this year as a goal? Thoughts?

Since all libraries and frameworks are abstractions ultimately built upon plain js, the way in is through plain js.
Once you've got a foot in that door, the libraries and frameworks are a lot easier to understand since you most of the time can guess what it is doing in the background.

Learn C++ -> any other lang will be easy as duck

@tass I wish I'd learned c++...