Man, I’ve seen a few of those “I quit programming” videos on YouTube and I can’t believe how much people miss the forest for the trees with this situation.
At base level, what programming encapsulates is the rejection of the 3D space as the default space where things happen. Things happen in the digital world and remain there – yes, they impact the real world too, but that’s missing the point: when you’re working that job and living that lifestyle, you operate as an agent of the (abstract) 2D space where the code is.
You are forced to work through a digital middleman to fix anything – there’s no way to fix digital things directly within the 3D space that your body is in. Either adapt to handle the helplessness of this, or fail.
This whole concept is by and large what I’ve tried to explain in my posts like the toaster one: humans desire the 3D space as the default medium that can be modified and tinkered with. Being a brain in the 2D digital world reduces the human down a dimension, and some humans will reject that medium for their “true nature” / “default” / “obvious” one: the 3D space.
Thus, programmers dream about farming and ultimately may leave to do something else; they can’t convince themselves in the reality of the 2D space as above that of their default 3D selves – or they feel degraded by reduction of dimension and rebel. It becomes in this sense a question of retaining dignity, not a question of interest or skill in code.