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Passive consumption and active skill building are different emotional contexts.

Adam Smith wrote of it hundreds of years ago; extreme division of labor will make humans as dumb as the lowest creature.

To reduce screen time during covid I ditched my TV, bought a guitar. Not saying everyone should pick up music; I already knew how to play saxophone and piano; it was evolving my current state. The point is I cut passive consumption to infrequent mentorship via YT tutorials, rather than endless staring, to focus on mechanical skill building.

Our society needs to let go of career memes, which IMO are coupled to historical memes like “A man named Farmer is a farmer for life” which forces us to relinquish our dynamism in deference to memes of greater good. But I should qualify; I grew up in farm land, building barns, fixing big machines (programming machines all night), cutting wood in January, managing livestock, was routine in my teens. Diverse hands on experience was baked in early (only in my 40s now). Someone without that will have a harder time.

The only evidence human agency must serve aristocratic vision is being told as much from birth.

[Apocryphon]

“ A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

-Robert A. Heinlein