The vanishing American man

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Some of you might enjoy W Somerset Maugham's book The Razor's Edge.

Also turned into two movies (1946 original, remade in 1984).

About a man who renounces the trappings of "success" to lead a simple life.

And, those who pursued conventional "success" lost everything in the 1929 stock market crash and great depression, anyway.

So, what's the point? You're just going to die eventually anyway.

American men were not prepared for a more competitive economic environment that coalesced with a more level playing field for women; the end of the New Deal Coalition aka Keynesism, Fordism, the end of the Cold War increasing the number of competing workers around the world and a loss of a sense of their place in the world. Everyone has to scramble for a narrower sliver of the pie and those who used to get a much larger wedge of it miss the good ol' days.

I've watched an hour of the original version yesterday evening after supper. It's a very good movie so far.

Another movie in a similar vein is The Art of Travel (2008)

A highly technological society is also a highly interdependent society. For example, today's technologies necessarily involve transporting and processing materials from many different places around the world.

Most of the jobs that David Graeber calls "BS Jobs" involve managing various aspects of the interdependence of modern society. And it seems to me that a highly interdependent society will necessarily generate many such jobs, although the exact nature of those jobs will depend on how the society is organized, as well as on the level and kinds of technology that are available.