Whether it's getting your first job in the market, or having to do Leetcode for switching from a toxic, stressful job, how do people handle the dread without breaking down?<p>More importantly, what makes you still love computing amidst all this? Sometimes one feels the dread when being underpaid, other times the dread is because you're paid fine but you're doing essentially nothing that you feel good about. Can the hacker lifestyle of the 80s-90s still be revived without breaking down? Can we still have fun with computers and be creative instead of being stuck on chasing whatever new surge happens to the market?
> More importantly, what makes you still love computing amidst all this?<p>In my mind, the state of the market, realities related to employment and/or income generation, and things like that are all orthogonal to computing, so none of it affects my love of computing at all.<p>> Can the hacker lifestyle of the 80s-90s still be revived without breaking down?<p>Of course, because none of that has anything to do with income generation.<p>> Can we still have fun with computers and be creative instead of being stuck on chasing whatever new surge happens to the market?<p>This conflates two different things. Whether or not your chasing the latest Hot New Thing only related to having fun and being creative if you enjoy the latest Hot New Thing. If you don't, then you just don't get on board that train.