> It may even work for most workers but for some us, we cannot mentally "compartmentalize" the day job as the isolated 9-to-5 soul-sucking slog and then use the weekend activities to make up for it.
Remember that the absolute majority of humanity are working soul-sucking slog jobs to get a salary to be able to afford a home and food and some nice things.
We who work in tech are extremely fortunate to be able to find jobs that are both very well-paying as well as fulfilling. Thank your lucky stars that this is a possibility for you.
In my experience menial jobs are not necessarily soul sucking. One of my jobs was literally 90 percent cutting open plastic bags and throwing their contents into a machine. Sure that is not nearly as rewarding as cleaning up some messy code or thinking up an elegant software architecture but it beats having to deal with an horrible third-party API day in and day out without any hope of fixing it. During a lot of menial work you can let your thoughts float around so I digested many an abstract idea which I had read about the day before while my body was engaged in an activity that only needed a fraction of my attention.
This is an important perspective. I'm grateful for what I have, but I deeply struggle with the same feelings others have shared in this thread. Knowing that I'm fortunate to not be subsistence farming doesn't fill that hole where purpose should be. It seems some humans might not be wired to feel okay about this, no matter how hard they try.
Maybe our goal should be to free everyone else from soul sucking slog jobs through automation/reorganization of incentives to not have these make work jobs? I'm really interested in finding/working towards a solution for everyone.
> but I deeply struggle with the same feelings others have shared in this thread.
Yeah, it's like the old saying "rich people problems are still problems". :-)
I get it and I sympathize, everyone should strive to make their lives as fulfilling as possible. But a tiny bit of humility and outside perspective works wonders.
> Maybe our goal should be to free everyone else from soul sucking slog jobs through automation/reorganization of incentives to not have these make work jobs?
110% this. We must reach post labour as soon as possible to stop the insane waste of human potential.
The global employment rate is about 60%, for reference... So nearly all of the employed would have to have such a demoralizing job to make an absolute majority.
I think many relatively low income workers still have things meaningful social relationships at work, or perform jobs frequently rated as meaningful like nursing/farming, which can make up for some of it.
In nearly all western countries people could get all the things you mentioned even as unemployed, but most people choose to work, frequently because they like luxuries and status.
Remember that the absolute majority of humanity are working soul-sucking slog jobs to get a salary to be able to afford a home and food and some nice things.
We who work in tech are extremely fortunate to be able to find jobs that are both very well-paying as well as fulfilling. Thank your lucky stars that this is a possibility for you.