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I often notice a dissonance when people claim they love their jobs. I suspect that for many, if the financial necessity were removed, the passion would fade quickly.
That said, there are absolutely some who find genuine enjoyment in employment versus those who see it as a means to an end.
If this is you, is it the specific problem space you work in? The structure it gives your day? The social connection?
In this scenario the best possible way to occupy the brain is to set goals and build discipline towards reaching such goals.
Even pleasurable stuff like music or social connection or even I'd go as far as sex might seem 'not work' on day-1 after you fire yourself after receving the 10mil cheque
But On day 60 after leaving work with 10m
1) the 'fucking around' on the fretboard becomes 'practicing scales for at least 30 mins'
2) the hanging out at the bar becomes 'organizing parties in a way to maximize social fun with games etc'
3) the 'ONS from the club' becomes 'trying to find an escort with girl-next-door look who'd also offer Pornstar sex service and greek sex service'
Every human endevour of any kind has an S-curve type shape where after a while if you want to progress and get novelty from higher experiences you must apply IQ and discipline and so it becomes a 'work'
Leonardo Da Vinci after having signed off all the accomplishments that we know basically turned wedding planner and party organizer in Milan , I suppose orgy organizer too but don't quote me on that, and guess what? After 60 days or so it became a 'job' for him to put the pieces together in a way to reach an amazing social result.
Same with today marriages, happiest day of her life? It's the most work of her life too to get those 8 hours or whatever is the party lenght exactly right
And $10M would require some up-front management and ongoing maintenance to develop an index-tracked revenue stream from it. I mean, aside from an initial disbursement meant to wipe out harmful debts and get a few small toys, the vast majority of that $10M would go towards being productive revenue-generating assets. No, not from the backs of other members of the working class like rental homes, but via stocks that generate dividends.
For one, I would likely adopt one or more open-source projects that have people struggling to be maintainers, and to fund them in some manner via the dividend income. Kind of like a “you no longer have to worry about food and shelter needs anymore” type of support.
It’s not like I would be able to support oodles of projects like this, but a choice project or three that is vital to the entire tech ecosystem and which desperately needs to remain independent of corporate influence… yeah. I already know of a few.
I believe that unless one manages to regress to our primal animal state the brain has a need to think about something in order not to think about self and the possible dark existential stuff which should absolutely be ignored and avoided. In this scenario the best possible way to occupy the brain is to set goals and build discipline towards reaching such goals. Even pleasurable stuff like music or social connection o…
In The Prophet (1923), Kahlil Gibran writes On Work: "Work is love made visible." This is the kind of work you're talking about.
However, the OP question is "would you still show up to work?" This kind of work is usually for a for-profit company owned by capitalists, with their time controlled by their employer, and their effort disconnected from its impact (the alienation of the worker, per Marx).
It makes total sense that someone would stop "showing up to [someone else's] work" and start developing their own independent work ethic towards their own goals. These two types of "work" are not the same, even if we generally use the same word to describe them.
I have a cushy job, especially when I compare it to how many other people earn money, but it's still a job rather than a passion. The social aspect is all well and good, but much (but not all) of it in a company is actually quite fake.
I don't need $10M, 1 or 2 is good enough. I'm going to pay back all debts, rent a cabin (last checked about 127 CAD per night) for a few weeks and bring my son with me for a few nights. I'm also going to buy a telescope. 4-6 hours of kernel hacking at day, and 2-3 hours of stargazing during the night. Heaven!
Also, I wouldn't work 40h/week on it. More like ~10h/week. I would take it very slow, focusing on the parts that I enjoy the most (like deciding the font of the website for my product, or deciding the dir. structure of my backend, or thinking about that algorithm for days or weeks until I got it right).
I don't like tech companies. I work for one because they pay good. I love my career nevertheless and I become better at it in my free time (that's another reason tech companies pay me good money, because I'm good at it... but I couldn't care less about their products; I pass their interviews with a fake facade)