It's a terminal preference that's alien to me, certainly. No more "good" or "bad" than the terminal preference a salmon has to swim upstream, fertilize eggs and die; it is what it is.

Now, if the question is whether this really is his terminal preference, or whether he misunderstands his own deepest desires and might, under different conditions, have suffered a "mid-life crisis" realizing he hasn't satisfied his true goals after all... I can't really say. You'd have to ask him. Probably after getting him very drunk, because "has your life been a mistake" is not the type of thing you make small-talk about.

I think the fact that he was on his own on the street at age 9 or thereabouts and had to find work to survive would probably play a big part. Even if he hated it to start, by the time he had the freedom of making the choice to do something else he was probably truly into it.

That's a tough question. I think it would be best to not have to "force yourself" and just go with your inner flow, however that might be a fantasy for anything other than pure consumption.