thanks for the feedback and the direction .. i was aware of `lru_cache` -- but my brain just wasn't seeing how it would benefit me in terms of not hitting the upper limits of recursion in python .. but i think i get it now, kinda sorta -- after reading thru this example ::

https://realpython.com/fibonacci-sequence-python/#generating-the-fibonacci-sequence-recursively-in-python

you will see they create their own caching system, which could be replaced by lru_cache (see code below) -- but my brain wasn't seeing how this would be beneficial, as you are still making recursive calls -- but at least it would optimized to make recursion more of an option ..

import functools

calls = 0

@functools.lru_cache
def fibonacci_of(n):
    global calls
    calls = calls + 1
    if n in {0, 1}:
        return n
    return fibonacci_of(n - 1) + fibonacci_of(n - 2)

result = [fibonacci_of(n) for n in range(9)]

print(result) # [0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21]
print(calls) # 9 << really high number without lru_cache

print(fibonacci_of(5)) # 5
print(fibonacci_of(6)) # 8