| To the outside observer it can all seem like "work" but to the code artist.. some percentage of it is indeed drudgery but another (hopefully larger) percentage of it is "creative play" using an artistic medium that the master painters and scribes of antiquity would have traded an arm for. For me the problems arise when money enters the equation because then you find reasons to set aside your vision of a masterpiece so you can hurry up and ship your your "Minimal Viable Product". You do make a good point though about the "addictive quality" of shiny boxes. I leverage meditation to help me "decompress" rapidly on the occasions when I do end up overworking. Sol Robeson: Have you met Archimedes? The one with the black spots, you see? You remember Archimedes of Syracuse, eh? The king asks Archimedes to determine if a present he's received is actually solid gold. Unsolved problem at the time. It tortures the great Greek mathematician for weeks - insomnia haunts him and he twists and turns in his bed for nights on end. Finally, his equally exhausted wife - she's forced to share a bed with this genius - convinces him to take a bath to relax. While he's entering the tub, Archimedes notices the bath water rise. Displacement, a way to determine volume, and that's a way to determine density - weight over volume. And thus, Archimedes solves the problem. He screams "Eureka" and he is so overwhelmed he runs dripping naked through the streets to the king's palace to report his discovery. Sol Robeson: Now, what is the moral of the story? Maximillian Cohen: That a breakthrough will come. Sol Robeson: Wrong! The point of the story is the wife. You listen to your wife, she will give you perspective, meaning. You need a break, you have to take a bath or you will get nowhere. |
What's happening on a larger scale: there's a growing number of single professionals that live mostly at work, have no family and are pretty much destined to die alone once premature ageism has thrown them to the wolves. That's a problem, because most millionaires are married because it's more practical than doing everything yourself.
For the few biased survivors, it's great if they're able to play more than work, but most people are slaves to debt without a partner beside them. (Sucks to be them.)