FIRE is a good cautionary example, but I think it makes the point I wanted to get at: people start out as little meaning-making machines. They connect deeply with each other, interact easily, enjoy their lives. Then we ruin that.

The FIRE community have won the ruined game -- they're what you get when you remove the financial need, but keep the same psychological objective function, keep the same screwed-up sociality. They might be lounging by the pool but they're still stuck in the old mode of being. The ones who transcend the old workday-grind-mode are doing great. But that's non-trivial.

There was a really good article on this that I found recently ... Ah yes, here it is [1]. This is a thought-provoking take on a similar topic.

[1] https://charleseisenstein.substack.com/p/notes-on-privilege