Someone once said (I'm thinking it was either Taleb or Gatto, but I'm not sure) that a great many intellectual breakthroughs came from people who were underemployed. Bayes was a reverend. Einstein was a patent clerk. Many of the greats of the enlightenment were either nobility (Newton) or independently wealthy (Franklin).

If you want to do something meaningful with computers, you've probably got a better crack at it as a fireman (you'll spend most of your time just waiting around thanks to sprinkler systems) than as a tech support guy (who will be too drained from the dumpster fire we call our industry to do any productive work at the end of the day).