I see this as a kind of Stockholm syndrome. Your time is being held hostage by your commute, so you cope with ways to use that time. I was the same way. At first, I was stuck commuting for 75+ minutes to and from work on public transit. Most of this was spent walking, because it was actually faster to bee-line on foot for the office downtown than trying to jump between inner city transit options. I read books on the train or did crosswords when able, but the train ride altogether was maybe 20 minutes long, with maybe 5 minutes spent waiting at the stop (if it wasn't late). So about 25 minutes I could spend "productively" by reading on the way in, and another 25 on the way back. Assuming the train wasn't jam packed by the time it arrived, leaving me hardly any room to even hold a handrail let alone do anything else, which was not a rare occurrence.
Then my employer finally got me a free parking pass for the building (there was a waiting list) and I said goodbye to public transport. My 75+ minute commute became a 25 minute drive, saving me 100 minutes a day I could spend on leisure instead of commuting. What undercuts this happy turn of events is that Covid came in a few months later and my prized parking pass became irrelevant as I was working from home.
And this made me realize enjoying ANY kind of commute is essentially Stockholm syndrome. What's better than a short drive OR reading on the train? Reading at home, in my big comfy chair with a cup of coffee, right up until it's time to start work, never having to take off my slippers.