The new age luddite

The time-consuming task of writing code was never the obstacle.

I used to believe I was driven by output. I felt gratified from building things that worked. But output has become 10x more efficient, and I feel less than before. So it was never about the output.

It was about feeling like a creator. A producer of value. Someone whose effort mattered because it was difficult, because it required me.

Now I watch myself become a middle man between the model and the product. The code appears, functional and unfamiliar. I did not write it. I did not struggle with it. I did not earn it.

Why do others not feel the same? Were they always just chasing the output?

I find myself clinging onto less and less. Readability, architecture, elegance. Anything that makes me feel like an essential part of the workflow. But all these details will inevitably be reduced to nothing as well. The craft will be hollowed out until only output remains.

The Luddite rejects not the machine, but the abstraction of self.