I'm Tired of Hacking. What Do I Do? Please Advise.
logic: I was, and still am, in a similar situation.I picked up the requisite non-tech hobby that I'm now quite passionate about: in my case, it was automotive modification and racing. I have a veritable performance shop in my garage now: I taught myself welding and metal fabrication, aerodynamics, fluid dynamics, engine performance, fuel delivery, and a host of other skills. I even came back around to the tech side of things by getting involved in electronic engine management (reflashing and reprogramming OEM ECUs, logging, performance tuning, etc). It's exciting stuff, and introduced me to a very different community of people than I'd previously known.Echoing some of the other comments here: I married a woman who is possibly the perfect companion for me, something I try very hard to be for her. We also have two dogs, another item I saw mentioned, and they've been a joy.After all that, I still spend 8 hours (minimum) each day doing work that has lost it's lustre. When I started my career, there was exciting work to do: in 1994, my cohorts and I started an ISP. I did work in that vein for about six years, and it was some of the best years of my career (my personal life was a shambles, but the work was incredible). Today, that's reversed: I have a rich private life, but the work is dull.So, my long and winding road to a point: the suggestions to get a "significant other", pet, and non-tech hobby, while well-intentioned, won't actually fix your problem. Certainly, take a bit of time off and decompress to make sure you're not just in need of a vacation, but that's essentially what you've already done. And the fact that you have neck pain is significant: you should certainly get that addressed before making substantial changes that might not be necessary afterward.But, at the end of the day, you'll still have a problem with being bored of the work you're doing, and you can only fix that by finding new work to do: either new problems/niches in your current field that you haven't tackled before, or start looking in the direction of fields that you can get passionate about.