What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers
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Aaron Horwath is the director of AI operations at a creative technology company where he is focused on implementing AI in a way that supports both humans and business.
On a recent morning commute, I sat on a train in one of those awkward four-person configurations with a shared table. Across from me sat a typical commuter: early 30s, slacks, dress shirt, dirty white sneakers, hair a little disheveled, AirPods in, basking in the glow of an open MacBook.
For over half an hour, I listened to this young man as he was on a call explaining, in painfully monotone detail, EBITDAs, margin expansion opportunities, cost structures, ARR, etc. On and on he went until the screeching of the train’s brakes signaled our arrival at the final station. But as everyone else around us began shuffling to disembark, I watched the man begin digging frantically through a leather bag at his side. Intriguing! I wondered what he’d pull out. A copy of “ Atomic Habits ”? A framed portrait of Gary V? A Mac mini running OpenClaw?
None of the above. Instead, he took out two long knitting needles. Between them dangled a mound of pink yarn. He explained to me that he was making a winter hat for a niece. And for the first time that morning, I noticed a glint of pride and excitement in his eyes.
The hat was a project born from a desire, as he put it, to do something.
Among my Knowledge Worker peers, I am hearing this more and more often: people who want to pick up pottery, painting, crochet or other old-timey analog hobbies. In coffee shops and in the low-lit corners of bars, professionals are sharing dreams of “disappearing” or “living on a farm somewhere” or “going off the grid.” These aren’t fantastical daydreams; they are visions of escape shared in a tone that betrays an underlying existential angst, a fundamental doubt about work and careerism inspired by a seemingly increasingly common experience: waking up one morning at an existential precipice, struck with a sudden sense that knowledge work is, and perhaps always has been, pointless. Perhaps you too have felt such a feeling, a rising tide of overwhelming, indescribable melancholy, slowly threatening to envelop you in your Ikea office chair.