I've essentially been FIREd for almost 18 months now (except for a very brief gig last fall). I really didn't realize that I was kind'a sort'a retired at 57 unt

I've essentially been FIREd for almost 18 months now (except for a very brief gig last fall). I really didn't realize that I was kind'a sort'a retired at 57 until just a few months ago. I was in a startup that ran out of money towards the end of 2019 and they kept telling me through 2020 that they'd get more funding soon and call me back to work - but of course, that never happened, and at this point it's not gonna. So that's how I eased into "early" retirement - if 57 is early. But really, what I've realized in the last few months is that I don't dislike working as long as I'm working for/with nice folks doing interesting work with a good amount of autonomy (all true in the case of the previous startup gig). But what I do hate with a burning passion is looking for work and interviewing - the terrible tech interviewing situation has been well documented here on HN, so I won't say more. So at this point I consider myself retired from interviewing, but not from software development. The short gig I had in the Fall was a contract with a previous employer who needed a quick project done (no interviewing required). Like the author of the article I have had some issues with finding "purpose". It can be hard to relax into this kind of nonemployed situation and when you do get relaxed then you start to wonder if you're losing purpose and drifting. This is the battle - you're going to face it whether you retire early in your 30s or if you retire at the traditional age of 65. I'm trying to keep reading papers and doing some coding but I often come to the "what's the point?" crisis while working on something. Many times that's led to just dropping said project and going on to find another, but now I'm trying to push through the "what's the point" point. During the short gig last Fall, I did notice that working more than 24 hours a week is difficult at this point - fortunately it was a 24 hour/week gig, but I'd get to the middle of that 3rd day and be like "Yeah, I'm really ready to not be working anymore this week". This was after about a year of not working. I suppose that if that short gig had lasted longer I would have gotten more into the rhythm of work again.