As Carl Sagan said, we’re a species that needs a frontier. We need to explore. That’s how hunter-gatherers actually survived, by following the animal migration and pushing outwards when population pressure or ecological change demanded it.

I don’t see how our modern incarnation of plantation jobs is in anyway equivalent to that natural instinct. I don’t think that the vast majority of people would have as much trouble as you finding meaning in their lives without work - especially since 99% of them don’t even have a sliver of a chance at “fuck you money” like you did.

> especially since 99% of them don’t even have a sliver of a chance at “fuck you money” like you did.

I didn’t have “fuck you money”. Just enough to live a moderately frugal life on the equivalent of median income as long as the market didn’t tank.

The thing about your point that doesn’t make sense to me is that you’re describing a scenario in which 99% of people suddenly are in the same situation I was.