Productivity is antithetical to intellectual exploration. Software is a craft pursuit, essentially blue-collar work. The OP does not wish to be a craftsman.

Productivity is antithetical to intellectual exploration. Software is a craft pursuit, essentially blue-collar work. The OP does not wish to be a craftsman. He wishes to be an intellectual, an explorer, an inventor, all of which are pursuits of luxury, enabled by the efforts of those people who actually make things and do the labor of the world. I find it unfortunate that in stating his preferences he finds the need to dismiss the value and joy of crafting. It used to be that those luxury pursuits were the realm of the upperclass or the genius, though more recently they were subsidized by the labor union-enabled middle class support of public universities. Such accessibility, though, is a historical anomaly and has fallen apart with the fall in funding for higher education. I enjoy making things, even out of parts, because those choices are valuable. The application of design patterns is joyful, even if it involves creating nothing from whole cloth, because of the rapid creation of a product in which I take pride. I recommend to the OP that if he genuinely does not enjoy what he is doing, he seek out some other field, part time work or simply long-term employment where his employer will appreciate algorithmic innovations (I find computer vision to be an excellent field for this).