Everything has, in fact, changed, and it is a task for those of us who cared about what was, to try to work out what is worth caring about.
As Annie Savoy says in Bull Durham, “the world is made for those who aren’t cursed with self-awareness”. You’re going to have to figure out new things to care about, but you can do it, because you found it the first time!
What did you found for yourself?
I am reconciling myself to the AI future by learning open weights tools, and I hope to learn how to use that in assistive technology.
Do you enjoy explaining things?
The irony is, my work is to train frontier llm's, so my own "child" killed my lifelong passion
A family member got out of IT a few years ago, retrained as a specialist gardener, drew from that the confidence to retrain again as a teacher while still gardening, and now teaches.
So it can be done.
I have found many interesting things to care about. The problem is they all lack a single quality that allowed me to succeed in the realm of computers and technology: accessibility.
ETA: whether there is a way forward for a replacement career I don't know. But there is a way forward for a replacement interest and there are ways to use this to help people. I'm sure this is true for other things. The terrible adjustment is moving to "work-to-live" in a job where you used to find some belonging.