Up to now, you’ve been following the track your society has laid out for you, growing and building yourself into a useful and civilized adult. Unfortunately, this where the tracks end.

No one will blame you if you fall into the perpetual cycles of materialism and let the world grind you up in exchange for occasional pleasure of increasingly empty quality.

The only escape I have encountered is to find something that calls to you, and to treat it as more important than yourself. The hard part about that is that other people, your friends and family and strangers online, who do not themselves worship the same, will criticize your choice. And you’ll have to decide which you can afford to do without.