Current situ: Slogging on through cold, blizzards, etc. Attempting to generate more revenue, at least to basic sufficiency, and, secondly to keep progressing in work and thought, which in all probability means a return to nomadry or some internal-exile bolt-hole in the upper Midwest. But even with the credentials, skills and experience, nothing seems be at hand. The current culture of prosperity means it's all one rather large party, and you invite your friends, rather than those who did best on the tests. As a diligent fellow who has always kept to himself (for some reasons that might not immediately be apparent), and as someone who generally detests parties, the going is rough.
Pointing out that it's all rather a sham is no solution to the problems at hand... but quod scripsit, scripsit.
And therein lies the greatest evil of the time: the claim of right. That going along with things is morally preferred to having ideas about things. This is deeply rooted in American thought, and if the tide of prosperity from the postwar mechanisms of industrial prosperity ever goes out, this specific thought with a specific provenance might eventually be thought the fatal error of the republic.
So, to sum, trying as hard as I can to return to southern Europe, which offers civilizational context, affordable culture, and the means of basic sufficiency vis a vis feeding, sleeping, etc. But that would be in service of working, reading and thinking, and the local situation, as difficult as the gulag is, does offer a way of study and thought, given the research libraries. (And then survive the nights as best you can.)
Hic Rhodus, hic salta.