Thought I'm Wrestling With: Do I Actually Contribute Anything Essential?

I’ve been thinking about how far removed most of us are from producing anything vital to human survival.

I don’t farm. I don’t hunt. I don’t build shelter or haul clean water. I sit at a screen—sometimes to solve problems, sometimes to stare into the abyss of my own search bar—and I get paid for it. Paid more than the people doing work that literally keeps me alive.

We’ve become so surplus-rich that people earn full-time incomes from playing video games, selling digital pictures, or analyzing data tied to arbitrary financial derivatives. And I’m not judging that—it’s just… weird. Astonishing, in a way. But weird.

Think about it: entire industries exist to serve micro-needs that only emerged because we had time, money, and convenience to spare. Entertainment—sports, movies, music—makes billions not because it feeds or shelters us, but because we no longer need those things. I doubt a group of nomads in 2000 B.C. would’ve bartered their invaluable supplies to watch little kids review toys on YouTube.

And yet, it’s the knowledge workers, managers, and abstract thinkers who are often valued most by our modern society. People like me. We get paid handsomely for organizing, strategizing, optimizing—often with no physical output you can hold in your hands. Just digital files and messages flying around in cyberspace.

Don’t get me wrong—I understand how having basic needs accounted for allows for the leisure time that produces ideas and innovation. But I wonder: if that same “abstract thinker” were born in 1245, would their social status be equivalent to their modern-day value?

It’s just fascinating that the human race has evolved to the point where being able to manage people or think abstractly is the skill society rewards. Often exponentially more than the laborer or master craftsman.

It makes me wonder: how much of what we do is actually valuable… and how much is just self-reinforcing theater?
We produce abstractions to sell to people who, in turn, produce their own.

I’m not sure if this line of thinking is useful or nihilistic. Paradoxically, it’s these very modern advancements that have afforded me the ability to write this article—and feel a sense of value in doing so.

So on one hand, it humbles me. On the other, it pressures me to do something “real”—as if growing sweet potatoes is more noble than running strategy meetings.

And maybe it is. Maybe part of our modern mental health crisis stems from being ungrounded—disconnected from work that ties us to the earth. We’re floating in the metaverse while reality is right beneath our feet.

Or maybe the better question isn’t “Am I doing something essential?”
Maybe it’s: “Is the life I’m creating feeding something essential in me?”

Still wrestling.