I feel you. The good news is, if you look for it hard enough there are opportunities to make a living while NOT producing pointless/meaningless output. It took me 20+ years to accomplish that, but the reason is somewhat like the author of the post describes (even if this might be projection of his own situation upon others) : we don't try hard enough to use our knowledge, skills and talent productively -- towards improving housing, healthcare, education, charity, energy,... stuff that really matters.