[seiji]

Let's frame it in the "Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose" happiness rubric.

If you're smart, you level up to Mastery fairly quickly.

Once you're no longer an absolute novice, it's frustrating to spend your days without meaning or purpose. The novice finds meaning and purpose internally when learning. Once learning has plateaued, meaning and purpose come from integrating with society.

This is where the shackles of jobs start to erode your self: the masters at bad workplaces dole out meaning and purpose based on die rolls. They don't understand the connection between what people are good at, what they want to do, and how they should do it. You get told what to do. You have little leeway. When your choices are removed, the friction eats you alive.

Modern hippy startups try to get around the last part by letting people do whatever they want. Those companies can be pretty much counted on one hand though.

In short: companies exploit the Mastery of smart people while forcing you to look at Purpose through double slits and removing Autonomy resulting in your knobs of happiness being broken without you even realizing it.