This is extremely common but not discussed in technology because it changes rapidly and often happens naturally (but often only at a surface level).
For academics, there is a common piece of advice to change what you are working on every ten years radically [1] because by that time, you have explored all of the areas that occur to you (low-hanging fruit and your specialty) and that you need an influx of new idea to refresh that creativity and curiosity that you used to have.
This happens in every field and every career. Your options are to continue as you are (and things will stay the same), to learn something at a much deeper level by becoming a specialist (which only partially addresses what you described), or to change areas/fields (this can be as simple as backend -> frontend/mobile/OS/etc.) and start over.
Only the last one is guaranteed to relieve your feelings, but it comes with all the negatives and insecurities you had when you first started.
#2, you've solved most of your curiosities, and it takes more and more work to dig deeper to refresh your interest if you keep doing the same things. It could be the others, but your wording makes me strongly feel it's #2.
As far as depression goes, a lack of curiosity is the first step toward depression, but not indicative in itself. Everything becomes familiar with enough exposure, but not finding new things to be curious about means you're in a rut.
Comments
This is extremely common but not discussed in technology because it changes rapidly and often happens naturally (but often only at a surface level).
For academics, there is a common piece of advice to change what you are working on every ten years radically [1] because by that time, you have explored all of the areas that occur to you (low-hanging fruit and your specialty) and that you need an influx of new idea to refresh that creativity and curiosity that you used to have.
This happens in every field and every career. Your options are to continue as you are (and things will stay the same), to learn something at a much deeper level by becoming a specialist (which only partially addresses what you described), or to change areas/fields (this can be as simple as backend -> frontend/mobile/OS/etc.) and start over.
Only the last one is guaranteed to relieve your feelings, but it comes with all the negatives and insecurities you had when you first started.
#2, you've solved most of your curiosities, and it takes more and more work to dig deeper to refresh your interest if you keep doing the same things. It could be the others, but your wording makes me strongly feel it's #2.
As far as depression goes, a lack of curiosity is the first step toward depression, but not indicative in itself. Everything becomes familiar with enough exposure, but not finding new things to be curious about means you're in a rut.
[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/scientific-swerve-ch...