Working at a startup before product-market fit can feel like this.

You don’t know why the work is important, but it must be done so we can at least discover whether it was important. You may not get that information, but you can take comfort in assuming someone does have it.

You’re mostly disconnected from your previous life.

There is a guy in the next office feeding baby goats, and your reaction is: “Yes, it makes sense that we’re also exploring feeding baby goats.”

People come in as blank slates and you’re grateful to have their companionship in the shared madness.

Bro, you want me to come up with an example that doesn't have anything similar in the OpenAI training data? They've probably trained it on every single piece of fiction and non-fiction that exists!

I would have to come up with something no human has ever conceived of. I don't think that is possible, or what point it would make, since nobody would be able to assess the quality of the output in that context?