Burnout and depression are natural responses to a disconnect between what you do and what you care about. Their psychological/physiological purpose is to get you to stop and rethink your life at a deep level. There are many questions that you don’t typically think about, like “why am I still participating in this economy”, “is it ethical for me to pay taxes”, “do I need to prepare for civil war”, or “how do I build up contacts in underground railroads” that your body knows have non-trivial answers in this scenario.
Chimpanzees have politics and tyrants, which means that our ancestors have had to deal with tyrants for at least 10 million years or at least 400,000 generations. We can feel in our blood when other tribe members are scrounging for sharp rocks to bludgeon us to death in the night, and it is only natural to withdraw from business as usual and rethink our options.
Burnout and depression are natural responses to a disconnect between what you do and what you care about. Their psychological/physiological purpose is to get you to stop and rethink your life at a deep level. There are many questions that you don’t typically think about, like “why am I still participating in this economy”, “is it ethical for me to pay taxes”, “do I need to prepare for civil war”, or “how do I build up contacts in underground railroads” that your body knows have non-trivial answers in this scenario.
Chimpanzees have politics and tyrants, which means that our ancestors have had to deal with tyrants for at least 10 million years or at least 400,000 generations. We can feel in our blood when other tribe members are scrounging for sharp rocks to bludgeon us to death in the night, and it is only natural to withdraw from business as usual and rethink our options.