I’ve been in the web development sector for over a decade now. I took a gap year during the pandemic to reconcile the fact that I no longer love development like I once did. There are still fascinating texts I plan on reading on things like compiler engineering, systems/OS/networking theory, and algorithms. However, I honestly have only worked on a high level over the span of my modest career, many here have a decade or two on me who I hope can save me from this moral nihilism of the software industry I suffer from.The very day lockdown began I left my job and went down a self destructive yet necessary path to burn the disdain in my heart away to answer where exactly I needed to belong.I decided to be absurd and said fuck it I will work on a paper surrounding the Riemann Hypothesis, not because I knew what I was doing but because I didn’t.Now to get to the questions I must ask of HN:1. If I pursue mathematics will my honeymoon end in the same disdain I’m left with now after treading water in the river of filth that is this industry, in practice but not heart?2. If I decide to level up on the CS topics I mentioned I still want to learn but could honestly take or leave, will I have a change of heart?3. I realize most industries don’t work like burger king, you can’t have it your way after all. This is a fact of life I accept with stoicism, but still, is the grass really greener on the other side? Will I really be happier if I focus on math heavy CS fields like ML and cryptography? I’m a programmer like it or not, but I find myself torn between studying mathematics or core CS topics I mentioned which do have an iota of math but only as a means to an end I feel I do not have the heart to pursue. I don’t have the time nor money left to study both, and so I must choose. The nature of life is choice itself I’ve come to realize and am paralyzed between my future and the abyss of my past. How do I overcome this hell?