In the great triumph of the middlebrow that seems to have been the outcome of Enlightenment, employment is a tricky proposition. (Not that I have much experience with the thing itself of late, but in laying siege to it, I've familiarized myself with the ramparts and portcullises.) Since the middle sensibility has triumphed, the rigors of the elite and the dutifulness of the low have completely fallen away, and within the general industrial prosperity, it's simply a big party. If they want you at their party, they'll hire you. If not, then not. It's not just non-meritocratic, it distrusts the notion of meritocracy, and prefers to pick a team based entirely on non-cognitive instinct. One difficulty with this is that many dark forces are quite happy to have the great mass of folks operating on non-cognitive instinct, and figuring things out as they go. And by the time they've understood, they've gone.
I've always intensely disliked parties. Time was, there were places for people who preferred books to parties, but now those are just a different kind of party, ones with slightly subtler codes.
But, in independence, it is possible to read and work. So I read and work. And the dark mechanisms of the world grow closer. Run while you have the light, the Book says.
To work, then.