You're right, and I agree with your conclusion about depression. The catch is that I feel most depression is environmental today. It's singularly exhausting to

You're right, and I agree with your conclusion about depression. The catch is that I feel most depression is environmental today. It's singularly exhausting to struggle while watching people who have the means to enact real innovation and change squander their potential on yet another gimmick. The only thing that's really helped me was to realize that it's all a gimmick. Life itself is a divine comedy. We each determine our own definition of meaning since science can't provide one. Using the book/movie Contact as an example, basically my philosophy has shifted away from Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) and more towards Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey). In it, he wrote a book called "Losing Faith: The Search for Meaning in the Age of Reason": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFcHpamkHII https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFcHpamkHII This spiritual battle we're engaged in between science and faith has been with us since the beginning. It's crushing down on us harder and harder now as science works to stamp out the last vestiges of our individuality and humanity. That sentiment might not make a lot of sense to many on this site, but it's the daily lived experience of billions of people forced to spend nearly the entirety of their lives toiling under subjugation (working towards another person's life purpose) to survive. You're also right about interest and motivation. I find AI to be perhaps the last frontier, since there's a chance it could explain consciousness and maybe even give us access to something like an all-knowing oracle or even a means to contact aliens. It's pretty much the most interesting thing there is, and why I got into computer programming in the first place. I'm just sad quite literally that I squandered so much time on running the rat race and never got a chance to contribute and "get real work done".