[physicsguy]

> It must however be daunting to be a theoretical physicist right now. It seems like the field has been in a standstill for years.

The general public don't really understand where most physicists work. The largest subfield of Physics is really in condensed matter, where (depending on how you count it) somewhere like 30-50% of physicists work, and where there is plenty of interesting theory work. High energy physics is the next biggest subfield, but much of it is experimental, and then you get into "classical physics" like acoustics, optics, etc. Astrophysics is relatively smaller. There's also nuclear, plasma, fusion and then a whole host of interdisciplinary work like biophysics, materials science, etc. Especially with interdisciplinary work, people often do bits and pieces throughout their career, not everyone sticks strictly to a single subfield.

There's plenty of interesting theoretical physics work in pretty much all of these fields. Not everyone works on grand problems of the universe!