The psychological truth behind why I've "given up" is that I can no longer envision my future. I always used to make important decisions by peering into potential futures, determining how easy it was to see myself in a new scenario or position. Now everything is fog. It's hard to picture me working a new job because it's gotten more and more difficult to conceptualize getting a job at all.
Everything used to work out the way it was supposed to as long as I stayed vigilant and sought out opportunities. I'm not sitting, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for an adventure to burst through my window. When I'm out searching and such things stop showing up, I'm forced to accept a new interpretation: if God wants me to do it, He will open my eyes to it as I search. Because that hasn't happened yet, I've interpreted my failure as a divine command to try something else, and the only something else I can think of is going all in on writing, becoming a tortured, starving artist.
Now that the world is like this, where one in four unemployed people have been job searching for over half a year, the outcome simply feels like it'll be the same no matter what I do. If I grind, if I slack around, it doesn't matter, because I'll never be able to afford the lifestyle my parents acquired on far less. At least one of those options allows me the free time to write movies. Sometimes it all feels like it's not my fault; it's just out of my control.
Is it?