> My personal opinion is that Rust is a bit too lengthy to keep everything in your head

I'm curious what you mean by "lengthy" here. The reason I say Rust lets me keep fewer things in my head is because something like this in C:

    struct Bar {};
    
    struct Foo {
        struct Bar *bar;
    };

where it's no clear if Foo owns Bar or merely outlives it, becomes

    struct Bar;
    struct Foo<'b> {
        bar: &'b Bar,
    }

in Rust and I no longer have to keep this information in my head.