There’s something so terribly draining about having so much “kinda free time” where I might have to do random tasks sporadically but is otherwise completely empty.
It was before widespread internet, so I can imagine that if I had the net in my pocket it would only have been so much better.
[edit] I had forgotten about this, but ironically, a few years earlier the company started selling a software package that was written by an engineer in a similar situation. He worked at a water plant and his job was basically to sit there all day occasionally checking some gauges to make sure everything was OK. Since he had essentially all day free with no one caring what he did, he wrote a complete software application.
I recognize that you're being sincere, and I don't mean to offend, but why would you tie meaning in your life to your labor?
Work time is labor time for me, and any amount of it is actively detracting from me being able to pursue the things that I do think have meaning.
The more time work takes, the less time I have for things that are meaningful, practically by definition.
Tying any sense of meaning or purpose to employment would seem to put the worker in an emotionally precarious position without any obvious benefit.
When I stop requiring additional funds, I'll stop going to work.
What am I missing?
I had never been more depressed in my life than those 5 months.
The closest thing I could compare it to is imagine printing out a copy of your current project's documentation, locking yourself in a room with it for 8 hours, then doing that 100 more times. It's a special type of hell.
No matter how well you think you can divorce your work time from your personal time, it starts to cross over. Work becomes so boringly painful that you actively dread it even in your time off. You know that tomorrow you're going to have to wake up and pretend to stare at documentation. For hours. And hours. And hours. And then repeat that the next day. And the next. And the next - with no end in sight.
Want to go hiking? Swimming in a river? Build some furniture? Build a house? Watch birds? Go shopping? Wrench on your car? Race your motorcycle? All are best done during the "work hours".
So while I can see the appeal of not tying one's meaning to one's job, I also completely understand the sinking feeling of having to postpone these activities for doing... nothing.
Because even though you can "find something to do" while at work, most of the time, you're not fully free. You may not just pick up your stuff and go fishing. You have to stay physically at the office and sometimes even have people dropping by asking random questions. So even getting engrossed in a book / music is out, since you'll be randomly interrupted. At least if you're WFH you can do random chores to free up the time afterwards (do the dishes / laundry / bake a pizza).
Of course, if you have to work to live, you have to go through this. But I don't see how its being necessary can make it less soul-crushing. Quite the contrary. I'm lucky enough to be able to find things to do on my own, or if not, work for one of my hobbies which happen to involve computers and don't require me to be physically somewhere precise. But not everyone's so lucky.
I have mechanisms to deal with them and to ensure that I do certain things, but the inner will always directs in a certain direction. I can summon the motivation to do other things, but I have so far failed to modify that inner desire.
If you're different, then do share what interventions let you modify.
Given that, your question is more like "Why would you like chocolate ice cream?". And the answer is simple: There is no 'why'; there only is.
Meaning is subjective, and many do find it in their work. For example, many software devs like the work of learning about and creating software. To be paid for it is a bonus, not something detracting.
More power to you. Not everyone is like that. Personally, I find compartmentalization unnatural.
Even the “work hard play hard” aspect of weekday/weekend. Unnatural to me. I do think everything has seasons. I don’t view those seasons as literally on an hourly granularity though, that’s what is unnatural to me.
Exactly, that's the problem. The article is not about not having enough work to do, it's about the work not having enough meaning to want to do it in the first place.
I ended up quitting when someone popped up with a much more creative job
I guess there are quite a lot of people that can just tune out things they don't like, but I'd wager most people are not capable of that trait. I think the more competent you are the more it bothers you not to produce anything. And it's not related to guilt, at least it never was for me(and looking around in this thread I'm obviously not the only one).
Just because you are paid doesn't mean you want to pass your life without perspective. This is basically someone sucking your life away without drive or mission and only compensating in money. And if there is any truth to the "Drive!" book, then the money is almost secondary to the other two factors.
It's fine for the first couple of weeks. Maybe even the first few months. But when one third of your life or more is spent with absolutely no meaning what so ever, when you hands feel tied behind your back due to certain obligations / job prospects / whatever, it wears you down. It did for me. It drove me to the point of wanting to end it all.
I really hope you're never properly bored at work.