I think you are not defining the problem broadly enough. Working or coding in general can not provide all the challenge and social belonging in life. Pick somet

I think you are not defining the problem broadly enough. Working or coding in general can not provide all the challenge and social belonging in life. Pick something that you are not good at and recapture satisfaction of growth. For example, I took up kickboxing about a year ago and I am still not great at it, but I can see improvement month by month. Or an ultimate 100x - have/adopt a kid or another kid, no more boredom for a decade. Next, even when it comes to work, you are not replicating your results at scale yet. Can you discover people with great potential and train them until they are able to challenge YOU and suggest improvements to whatever you come up with. Finally, is there truly no individual challenge left for yourself as an individual contributor? Have you looked at state of the art in 3D graphics, machine learning and quantum computing and expanded your expertise in these areas? Or if you prefer traditional programming, try coding for low end embedded devices where extreme ingenuity is required for production functionality and performance. Don't mean to jump straight into recruitment, but if you want, ping me some ways to contact you and I bet we can keep you challenged for a while. Or, for non work fun, check out retro computing / demo scene. This cuts down tedium of writing lots of code - can't fit that much in 64K or even 640L - while maximizing fun of making every line count.