I'm sorry to hear you had this struggle to identify with what you like, but you seem like you've worked it out to some degree. It sounds like you just didn't enjoy CS and got stuck in the field. That's fine, but it's not indicative of the field as a whole. If you hate something fundamentally, you find everything about it wrong in your mind.
With that being said, a lot of your remarks about bad parts of the industry are subjective at best, and just seem like an artifact of the situation you were in. I love CS, and do it as a hobby, and have not had anywhere near the same kind of experience you have had. I had a contemplative period like this as well, but figured out that we do the things we're interested in and enjoy whether we realize it or not. If you do something as a hobby, chances are you like doing that thing.
In any case, good luck on your quest to do something you enjoy better!
Thanks for your perspective. I don't claim to speak for everyone. I thought I was enjoying programming with just a few reservations that I could live with, but ultimately these problems became to be too much. The echo-chamber of love for the field, or "if you don't like it you just aren't tough enough" kind of talk really made me just feel like a whiner, especially considering I was pretty decent at it and received a good amount of praise/money for what I was doing.
HN frequently encourages people to go deeper into programming/technology when I really needed someone to tell me to explore around. My intention was to do just that for someone else.
With that being said, a lot of your remarks about bad parts of the industry are subjective at best, and just seem like an artifact of the situation you were in. I love CS, and do it as a hobby, and have not had anywhere near the same kind of experience you have had. I had a contemplative period like this as well, but figured out that we do the things we're interested in and enjoy whether we realize it or not. If you do something as a hobby, chances are you like doing that thing.
In any case, good luck on your quest to do something you enjoy better!