Not the parent commenter, but I feel it's because our society doesn't value knowledge or scholarship. Whenever I get depressed, I feel it's because I want to s

Not the parent commenter, but I feel it's because our society doesn't value knowledge or scholarship. Whenever I get depressed, I feel it's because I want to spend time learning and discovering but instead I'm forced to race against all the other rats just to have a decent standard of living (and I'm not talking about $50k cars). There's no time or energy left to, say, study differential equations or chemistry or anything that would actually benefit humanity. Instead, I must devote myself to activities that essentially have no value.