The article reminded me of a brilliant passage from one of Schopenhauer's essays ("On the Vanity of Existence", Section 5): Life presents itself first and fore

The article reminded me of a brilliant passage from one of Schopenhauer's essays ("On the Vanity of Existence", Section 5): Life presents itself first and foremost as a task: the task of maintaining itself, de gagner sa vie. If this task is accomplished, what has been gained is a burden, and there then appears a second task: that of doing something with it so as to ward off boredom, which hovers over every secure life like a bird of prey. Thus the first task is to gain something and the second to become unconscious of what has been gained, which is otherwise a burden. (..) For if life, in the desire for which our essence and existence consists, possessed in itself a positive value and real content, there would be no such thing as boredom: mere existence would fulfil and satisfy us.