A lot of careers have very effective feedback loops for telling you that you're progressing, while being almost completely silent on whether the destination is one you actually want

Well said. When I was a grad student, chasing what would have been a doomed career in cellular neuroscience, I was unfortunate enough (fortunately in the end, perhaps?) to get struck down by a significant depressive episode. This ended up being the feedback signal I needed to consider changing things up, and I did.

The concept of a "career" as a defined external thing has basically evaporated. There is at best a set of opportunities which you can grab, and a set of dependency credentials and acquaintances which you can use to unlock the opportunities. If the right opportunities do not arise then things can go downhill even if you've "done everything right".

In the end you will die. Religion can possibly offer you something for after death (depending on if you choose the correct one - this is an argument I am intentionally avoiding even though I have opinions). Very few people have a career in religion and thus for most your career will have nothing to say.

Genetically if you don't have kids you are a dead end. You career will have some bearing on the life you give you kids (if you have any, I'm not trying to say you should!) but otherwise I believe it should stay out of your kids life.

Similar to the above, most people live with a married spouse (common law marriage: a legal marriage is not required for this discussion, though it may or may not matter for other purposes). While many people do meet their spouse through their career this is not required and the career itself has nothing to say about it. (historically kings and queens did marry for career reasons)

Note that both kids and a spouse implies you shouldn't allow your career to take up too much time even though many will try to.

Many people have hobbies. Even if you love the things you do at work, odds are your mind cannot handle doing it once you are done with work: your career cannot tell you anything about them. There are many people who pick a career because the things like love cannot support the life they otherwise want to live: their career can't tell them about the destination because it is purely something they do to get there.

All of this is to say that even if your career would offer you help on the destination, you should ignore it.