But can't type it all out. Happy to answer any particular question.
In short: I saved up enough not to quit rat race forever, but to see what life was like without the obligation to work for an open ended amount of time. I did whatever the hell I wanted at any moment. Which was euphoric, but it's really really hard to accomplish larger efforts or really meaningful things with that attitude, because those things necessarily come with struggle. With no obligation, you don't need a tolerance to pain. You just quit building your side project when it gets frustrating. I only had staying power doing the things I enjoyed the process of.
After 2.5y (the last 1.5y spent doing 20h/wk contract work, and trying to build a startup) I crashed and burned hard psychologically. Freedom means nothing to me intrinsically, I need a reason to appreciate the freedom or make productive use of it. The appreciation wore off, mountains wore off, I don't actually want to code on my own time. Everyone else in life is busy doing meaningful things to them. I broke down and got a job again, but with a much different relationship with work.
I agree that the too much freedom can be disorienting. If you don't mind me asking, how did you end up deciding that getting a job again was the right move? How did that compare to keeping doing 20hr/wk contract work and then spending the rest of your time doing non-coding/non-startup stuff if that's what was burning you out?
Contract work for me was boring toil that the companies I worked for couldn't convince someone to join full time to do.
Perhaps it's my personality, but no amount of non-professional endeavors/hobbies make up for an empty professional life. I equally burned out of 20h/week + startups because they were unfulfilling.
