I started my postdoc in August, but the burnout started earlier, a few months before writing my dissertation. Congrats on finishing your degree (almost)!

I also have kind of esoteric interests in my field but it mostly hasn’t bothered me. It certainly doesn’t help with matters though when sometimes I’m trying to motivate myself and go “what’s the point?”

I will say that one thing I’ve learned as a researcher is that it’s hard to know what people will and will not like. I’ve received compliments on some of my least favorite papers I’ve written. My advisor always told this story about how, as a student, he won a best paper award for a paper that almost decided not to publish because they thought the results weren’t strong enough.