Interestingly, many people whose jobs are less secure, less financially lucrative, and less... suited for the future manage to have hobbies and do things for fu

Interestingly, many people whose jobs are less secure, less financially lucrative, and less... suited for the future manage to have hobbies and do things for fun =) I think it's a psychological quirk of the techier or nerdier crowd. Many of us have a great desire for a sense of not only autonomy but complete control over our own lives; indeed, feeling autonomous seems like it requires having complete control over our lives. In as market-based a culture as our own, that amounts to us being sold a story about how having an amount of money X (where X's amount is perpetually significantly larger than present but reachable) will give us that control, and we should perpetually aggregate as much money as possible until we reach X and then can live off capital gains. We like rules, and we like systems of rules that we can optimize against. Most people do, in one way or another. But we have it more than most, I believe, and it is perfectly capable for us to make the numbers work out to retire between 30 and 40 by working a stable desk job. Hence the constant draw and temptation to always push those non-pecuniary, non-market labors sometime into the future, where you'll theoretically have time in spades.