I save 90% of my income, and work freelance. My experience may be unusual but it has been the opposite. When I have a job time blurs togethor. I stop drawing, and exercising and learning math. Pressure builds. Eventually I finsh and that stage ends and a rennaissance begins. I am only a clear deep thinker when unemployed. When I am captured by the salient sense of daily responsibility and income, mental exercise is at the bottom of my priorities and doesnt make the effort/reward payoff threshold.

Same. Self motivation may be related to dopamine receptor rate and sensitivity which are a genetic trait.

It seems some people have a higher innate need for personal agency. Where many are satisfied to just be stable (nothing wrong with that), despite being well fed, without a sense of agency I wither. My dad seems to have exactly the same ailment.

This need for agency is not rational, and cannot be reasoned with. You cant offer it trades of money or favor, and it seems that it is absolutely incapable of being fooled. It asks not for agency over others, but only that what an individual does each day is self driven.

It probably has very different influence on someone whos goals naturally synchronize with those around them, rather than naturally invert.

Yep, I feel the same way. I focus on my music and feel far more satisfied when I’m not stuck spending lots of time on that sort of thing, which tends to make me feel tired and unmotivated all the time.

> For what it's worth, as someone who doesn't need to work on a daily basis (made enough in my 20s), extended periods of unemployment can quite easily lead me down a similar path to the one that the article describes.

When I was younger I missed the boat on a very successful local startup. The people who graduated a few years before me and joined the company at the right time exited with multi-million dollar equity. The CEO’s equity was in the 9-figure range.

I remember being intensely jealous that I had just barely missed the boat on that life changing equity. Just a couple years difference and I would have been wealthy enough in my 20s to never have to work again. I fantasized about all the ways I would live my life.

Over the years, the only people from that lucky group who remained happy were those who continued on with their careers as if nothing had happened. The ones who used that opportunity to exit the workforce have been universally cursed: Divorces, unhappiness, and now seething anger at the world and society. There’s a Slack for former members of the startup that I’ve been in for years and it’s sad to see the swirling anger and unhappiness of those who left the workforce.

I never would have predicted it at the time. The way people fantasize about not having to work is often very different than reality.

I know it’s not literally everyone who has this experience, but after seeing it happen to so many people I know it’s also not a rare outcome.

Could it be that the people still in the workforce can't afford to have a unhappy public face?

I work and have similar problems like you have listed but I have to pretend I'm a smiling person to remain employed.

> if you're poor and unable to find work, then you have all of that _on top of_ the financial stresses

Add alcohol to the mix and you're cooked. An alcoholic in this state can take years to come back to some sense of functional. Or any other addictive drug. Not a nice spot to be. with or without the drugs.

Or something else downfall-magnifying like CPTSD!

Really all this tells me is that, for most people, the only thing standing between them and being a husk of a person is their job. Which is kind of sad.

I saw a similar line of reasoning when WFH took off. Many people lamented the death of their social life. But, if your social life consisted of going to the office, did you ever really have a social life? Or did you have the bare minimum and then used to convince yourself everything is fine?

Sometimes people say the true purpose of modern human society is to keep people in poor enough conditions we can extract the maximum value from them, but in just good enough conditions they will never revolt. I think that's ridiculous, but then I read stuff like this and think... maybe there's some truth to it.

> Sometimes people say the true purpose of modern human society is to keep people in poor enough conditions we can extract the maximum value from them, but in just good enough conditions they will never revolt.

How is it ridiculous? If too many people achieved financial independence (and as long as labor is still necessary), this would cause inflation until enough are no longer financially independent. In reality losing the gene, health or heritage lottery sets you up for a life of exploitation (as an employee or consumer).

For the average HNer having contact with or awareness of working poor may be beneath them, but they exist, not in small numbers either. The hamster wheel is absolutely real and the intense bubble many on here live in becomes clearer to me by the day.

Since it sounds like you’ve been in and out of this, curious what advice you have for pilling yourself out.