Why I quit

Many reasons. Here's one reason, captured beautifully by Cary Tennis of Salon.

"I also found that work was really tiring, and that people after work did not have the energy to work on their projects. This too shocked me. Whatever art or writing or sports they might be doing, they let these things go, because they were tired. So I saw a nation of people whose energies were being wasted.
This sounds sillier and more naive all the time. And yet it was my experience.
So I thought, not me, that will not happen to me. I will work but I will not allow it to tire me out. I will write, and make music and live my life, even though I am working in an authoritarian organization in the daytime.
But I did not have the strength and endurance to do so. I lost the battle. I took refuge in addiction, so shameful was my failure to be an artist in America and also a worker in America."