I don't know where to start...
If you keep thinking this way you will never start. To mix some metaphors, instead of putting one foot in front of the other and surveying the ground in front of you, your head is in the trees.
Here's a concrete example I frequently observe with new users. We have a badge system, and one of the first ones most people acquire is informed, which is earned if you "Read the entire tour page".
You don't have that. I'll be a bit blunt and say perhaps this is indicative of you considering it a waste of your time to put one foot in front of the other -- you have your eye on more lofty goals! But, again, if you keep thinking that way, you will never cross the starting line.
If you had taken the tour, you might have recognized that this is not a discussion forum, and hence, questions like this are not appropriate to the format (another good thing to read are the first two links under Asking on the main help page).
Here are some questions that are more appropriate, taken from your post:
a bunch of terms I don't understand
Right, so look them up one at a time. If you are confused or uncertain, then ask a concrete, specific, singular, focussed question about that term.
WRT "this causes me to go into deep detail causing me to learn things that I sometimes don't need to know at all": That is a pitfall of learning. Learning is a skill. With practice, you will hone your ability to judge when to let go and when to continue. But if you throw up your hands because learning how to learn is too hard, well -- good luck...
I still don't know how to hook up a breadboard without having to buy attachments.(maybe I can't hook up a breadboard without attachments?)
Is a specific concrete question. If by attachments you mean a ribbon cable with a T attachment that covers the entire breakout, no you do not need one, but you do need female to male jumper wires. The female end goes over a pin on the pi, the male end sticks into the breadboard.
BTW "breakout" (or "pinout") refers to the rows of pins on the pi. Note that they are not actually all GPIOs. The pins that are purely ground or power (5V and 3.3V) are not "general purpose input/output", they are just ground and power pins.
what I'm asking for is a small task that will help me understand how to wire
This is sort of borderline here in the sense that it might be considered opinion based -- we don't do "give me your opinion on the best ...", etc. Part of the justification for that is that we expect people to make a certain effort on their own first; this is only fair, since you are asking other people to take time and make an effort to help you.
With regard to opinion based things, the way to approach them is to ask objective questions about how to assess something, e.g., not "what is the best ..." but "can this ... be used to ...".
Occasionally people come here asking questions that could obviously be answered by a search engine. People who answer questions do no appreciate that, because it implies someone could not be bothered, yet they want others to bother on their behalf.
In this case, you might simply search "raspberry pi beginner project" and you will find plenty of stuff to sift through, about which you can ask specific questions. I sense that you've already sort of done this but became frustrated. In that case, the task is to come up with focused questions you can ask about a concrete issue -- but do not ask them all at once!
Here's two simple things you should, in my opinion ;) learn to deal with before you move on to more complex things:
Turning an led on and off.
Using a button to to indicate state in a program (e.g., one that turns an led on and off).
The second one, like most things in programming and electronics, is probably a lot more complicated than it may seem.
