Well I can definitely count as being happy as a children, and quite often depressed as an adult. But material deprivation doesn't explain that, at all. As a child/teenager I could be happy just playing around (outside/legos/video games). Now I'm just like "what's the point?" or generally getting bored really fast about pretty much anything and just wondering about the meaninglessness of life.
My view is that kids are exploring and loving the world. Adults are support mechanisms for kids (and elderly). But we have been stripped of community and if you happen to not have kids, you can be even more isolated. Being around (free) kids is a great way to feel meaning in life.
Adults are driven by our evolution to be useful to the community. Games are designed to allow humans (particularly kids) to master skills. Adults ideally should have already mastered much of the needed skills. Hence games cease to be interesting the more one gets older (in general -- there are always plenty of exceptions).
I can definitely imagine that if I had been a farmer in middle-age I could have been happier, because I wouldn't have time to get bored, and I would be doing something useful.
In our modern world however, really useful stuff is done by robots or a tiny part of the population. Thus you have to find meaning on your own and that can be quite difficult.
In my opinion, there are plenty of useful things to do as a programmer. There are many non-profit organizations doing important work that would love to have a volunteer programmer. You could also teach math or programming to high school kids, etc. Paid programming work can sometimes seem far removed from "useful" work, but I think that's partly because of the complexity of society and all the abstractions that we have built. If you'd like to do something that feels more direct, I would suggest volunteering somewhere. But I do agree with your sentiment that finding meaning on your own can be quite difficult.
I said around children, not having children. The two are completely disjoint. I know lots of people who have children but are not actually around them and are miserable. Conversely, I know people without children who are surrounded by the happy little critters and have a deep sense of fulfillment.
Being around children teaches you a compassion for others and yourself, something your comment points towards a desperate need for.
ummm... you might want to try re-reading your reply and reflect on the OP's observation... your overly sensitive read of their post and vicious reply of your own suggests to me that you are not happy... and thus, presuming you don't have kids, supports OP's point.
If you can find some people to do stuff with that you like, it's quite fun. A lot more fun frankly - as a child, you can only do so much. As an adult with a career in IT, you can do a looooot more. Plus you get to have sex, aw ye!
If you're bored, you haven't found the right people and it likely means you have trouble getting along with them to begin with, so work on that.
Thanks, you might be right. I don't have trouble getting along though, I have trouble approaching and connecting. I can work on the approaching, but the connecting is problematic because of the whole getting bored of anything stuff. Hard to make any meaningful relationships when you don't give a ;;; about pretty much anything.
Approaching what? Oh these pick-up ideas that poison the minds of the young and impressionable!
You can't work on the approaching because that's not the root of the problem.
It's like this - some people form groups based on chit chat and hanging together. It usually involves alcohol and hooking up, that's kinda the point of it all. And what keeps it going is the never-ending gossip surrounding who did what with whom. That's late highshcool, college/uni and a few years afterwards for some folks.
People who are more intellectually inclined tend to not be a part of those groups because they're 'boring' - which's another way of saying you can't relate to them and they can't relate to you. You're not 'connecting'.
Here's the crucial element - smart people relate based on doing things that take skill, average folks relate based on liking same music, same clothes, etc.
Once you're good at something average people want to be good at - they'll put up with your inability to relate to them based on 'boring' things. You'll be this 'Steve Jobs'-like weird-o they'll come to appreciate. In turn, when they like you, you'll get to have sex with them and stuff like that, and YOU will learn that the stuff you couldn't relate to them about, is not so bad after all. It just wasn't intuitive for you. Once you're good at making women (or men if you're a woman) happy, you all of a sudden have this superpower that everybody wants.
So it's this self perpetuating cycle but you gotta get good at something that is going to give you social points, so that you can catch up on what being 'cool' is all about.
Some of those things are being in a good band, dancing, comedy, sports etc. Nobody cares that you know how to install Linux, but if you can get up and sing at Karaoke night and get a standing ovation, all of a sudden you're a little rockstar.
Isn't this (connecting with average people) what adults throughout the world are doing already? The same adults who, according to this report, are unhappy compared to children? What's the solution to all of this if such a popular lifestyle advice fails to deliver the results? Should smart people rinse and repeat the popular advice that is known to fail anyway? Why doesn't anyone question why personal well-being has to be dependent on validation from other souls in the first place?
Try travel, especially weirder types like long distance cycle-touring or sailing. This way you get new society, new people, new environment, and exercise and a sense of adventure to boot... and these often appeal to nerdier types because of the system / self-reliance element and the freedom to escape annoying environments.
