Because if you drop out of the work force, you get a different perspective. There's painting and music and they are a good contrast to your work, a good way to spend time not thinking about work.

But if there is only painting and music and cooking, it becomes kinda pointless, especially if most people you know don't have time during the day. You're doing this all alone.

Well said. Try quitting work and indulging those activities for a while. I don't think of myself as a particularly boring person. I love bike touring, and I live in a foreign country with all kinds of interesting places, food and culture to explore, yet doing it months on end I started to question whether _this_ was what all my hard work in years past was meant for. Did I save up all this money and liberate myself for this particular stroll around the neighborhood to take pictures? It felt unsettling.

I've been thinking about this all day, and I realized another experience it gives me similar feelings to. at 15 I absolutely hated public high school. I had been alt-schooled (home schooled, unschooled, something like that) up until 9th grade. After one year in regular school, learning at a mind numbing pace, I knew with conviction that I just wanted to finish school and get on with life, so I withdrew and enrolled in the local night school. I blew through classes and would have graduated in no time, but something started gnawing at me. I could finish school for the day at my own pace and then leave, but to do what? After leaving regular high school, my classmates were mostly troubled kids, or people trying to get their life back on track by getting a diploma. I fairly quickly realized that I was going to miss out on being in the rat race of high school for 4 years, and went back to regular school halfway through the school year.