I have, yes. Although born in a wealthy country, I grew up in abject poverty. I wasn't entirely unhappy then, and I do understand how social connection can help make it bearable. But I'm a lot happier now than then, and my happiness no longer depends upon the whims of other people, one of whom in particular betrayed my trust and left me deeply depressed for years. I greatly prefer my happiness being in my own hands, and I really couldn't go back to manual labour now, because there is so much I want to create and already not enough time to do it all; having more time to idly think about all the things I want to create and less time to create them would be torturous.

> No matter what you think it is that brings happiness to the general population, there will be at least someone who doesn't find happiness in it. There are always outliers.

I'm not convinced I'm that much of an psychological outlier, though; I think only my prosperous conditions are themselves a global outlier. I believe that if you gave most people the privilege I have, of having just enough money to pursue the things they love without doing work they don't enjoy, without worrying about being able to afford food, shelter, or medical bills, they would be happy too, with or without social connections.

> Farms are where you find the intersection of all cool tech. I have to wonder how someone who enjoys creating and consuming software would dislike working on a farm.

I need to do intellectually stimulating work to be happy. Repetitive manual labour would drive me insane. My mental image of "labouring on a farm" there was also "poor economic conditions subsistence farming", not "industrial farm with a million dollars worth of cool machinery".