How do I understand reaction kinetics and thermodynamics without feeling lost?

The kinetics and the thermodynamics feel like a wall right now, too much at once, and the overwhelm makes it all blur together. That blur is not a sign you cannot do this. It is the normal feeling of trying to hold a large subject as one lump instead of as its parts. Broken down, it is far more manageable. Underneath the equations are two plain questions. Thermodynamics asks: does this reaction want to happen, and how far will it go? Kinetics asks: how fast will it get there? Direction and speed. Almost everything else is detail hanging off those two questions. When a topic overwhelms you, trace it back to which of those two it is really answering, and it gets smaller. So pick one concept that is currently drowning you and place it under one of those two questions. Learn just that piece well before moving on. You do not have to swallow the whole subject at once. You have to understand one clear idea, then the next. That is the only way anyone ever learned it.