It's not just having people around either, it's shared goals and shared responsibilities. I'm more productive when I know others need my work. We could be collaborating on a game at a game jam where the game designer needs me to add some new settings they can tweak and the artist needs a way to get some new data in the game and iterate. That pressure is very motivating for me.
But, for me at least, it's both the feeling of wanting to provide solutions for other team members, the feeling of a shared goal, and the feeling of camaraderie I get from actually being with people (vs being remote)
I've been lucky the majority of projects I worked on were things I wanted to work on and see succeed. I can imagine lots of projects where I wouldn't feel that.
For me that would be travelling, hiking, and generally being in nature - but this requires at least OKish health for the age, which might or might not be there later. Reality is, we mostly don't know how things (and us) will turn up later in life, and if we end up in good spot it will be mostly by sheer luck.
Perhaps this study gives some merit to this premise, at least for cognitive use, if there's really any relationship at all and it's not purely genetic/age related (past data conflicts with some of these findings).
I find myself far more intellectually stimulated doing activities outside work than during work because people don't want to pay me enough for the things I find alluring, so I often compromise and do some bit of what people will pay me to do.
The commenter isn't advocating one way or another, only pointing out that there are people that exist who are content with work as their self-perceived life meaning.
I can absolutely see how this can be true for people in the sciences. There are many academics who devote their entire career - and often their life - to finding the answer to extremely difficult problems. For those people, I imagine they must feel their work as more of a life mission rather than a regular job necessary to pay the bills.
There are a lot of people who find significant meaning in their work (perhaps greater meaning in their work than they've been able to find outside of it). That doesn't necessarily mean it's bad or unhealthy.
These type of people may be few and far between. But they exist.
As you pointed out, the people who share this sentiment are a minority - I'm less convinced it's tiny, what I've read suggests it's a sixth to a third, depending on how satisfied we mean. But that group is heavily weighted towards high-status professions.
As a result, a high-status minority is actively opposed to any social reforms that would increase leisure time, and I do believe we all suffer as a result. I don't think we can really put a price on Albert Einstein staying in that patent office, but I think it's very high and I think we all pay it. That's what I associate with comments like the grandparent - such a person is in a good situation, and good on them for recognizing it. But they often generalize their experience to a majority of the population where that is actually very much the wrong conclusion to draw.
Or maybe it's that with trades you have a direct connection to the work you do and the effect it has on the world.
Either way I think we could learn something from them. White collar types seem to want to avoid work at all costs. Work isn't to be avoided. In fact if you measure your life by how much it affects others, it's probably the most important part of your life.
I can see why tradesmen may have better job satisfaction. You can directly improve the life of someone else.
However, my perspective has evolved somewhat, or changed might be the better word.
Just because something is productive and rewarded by society doesn't mean it can't be addictive. And just because something is rewarding and meaningful doesn't mean you're fully enjoying your life as the present. It can be easy to get caught up in always working for the future as life passes you by.
A life algorithm that's always focused on improving future moments, but that never takes the time to enjoy them when future arrives and they become present moments… it's almost like some sort of tragic Greek myth.
Considering a large definition of work, when you are cooking, cleaning your house, taking care of your children or grandchildren, maintaining your free software or participating in your association in your "free time", you are still working, only perhaps with less strings attached for some of these things, and unpaid for that (note that you can see your retirement leave as an indirect payment).
And that is very comforting to me: you can still work as a retired, on things meaningful to you, without anyone telling you what to do.
And sure, you may have the chance to pick a (paid, employed, founder's) job that is meaningful to you. Best to ensure that you'll still be able to achieve meaningful things to you (on your own) after you leave that job if this is important to you.
As for cooking, cleaning etc one can optimise those activities to do them almost mindlesly I imagine.
But I understand how someone might find fiddling around with photography or home software projects frivolous if they could instead contribute to projects they find significant-but are of a nature that they really need to work on more or less full time.
Hobbies I hate. By definition I'm an amateur and I don't perform well. At my job, I get to exercise the skills I'm best at.
I can't do any old job though. I have to be able to trace at least a thin line from what I'm doing to the broader society.
I know this isn't a common opinion, but I encourage you to at least consider that work—while not fun—is at least a fulfilling way to spend your time. This should be the case regardless of what you do or how much you make.
Depends. If no one else is doing that particular thing, then by definition you're the world expert. It doesn't matter if there are other people who could hypothetically do it better; they're not in the game.
I have a current hobby that most able-bodied technically minded people could do better than me (genetic joint condition), but as far as I can tell I'm accomplishing things no one else has.
Doing it as a hobby just means that you don't do it for money, not that you aren't good at it. For example often your hobbies overlap with your work. I program games as a hobby and program/design extremely performance sensitive things at my job, they overlap quite a lot.
If you love doing something (which is the origin of the word "amateur"), you're likely to be good at it. If you're a professional, it just means you get paid.
Amateurs care primarily about the pursuit itself, while professionals care primarily about their paychecks.
I don't think they're mutually exclusive views. I think it's possible to do meaningful and impactful work outside of your job and career, like volunteering or running a side business as a passion project or even creating artwork, and I can imagine that kind of work being the kind of thing you never retire from.
Building some software prototypes for ideas I have, that I count as a hobby. Reading all the books I do, however more time I spend on it than some work activities, I still think of as a hobby.
The external motivation is not succumbing to dementia.
I’ve seen people suffer from dementia. At the moment I’d rather have the option of euthanasia rather than live like that.