I then veered into https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/quitting-my-job-for-the-way-of-pain/
which gave me
"Each day I go to the office, and I watch people senselessly babble about AI and robotics while what we actually do is maintain a pile of teetering spreadsheets and schemaless metadata"
and what I'm saying here is please stop feeling like you're behind if all you're comparing yourself to is the conference papers/presentations of peers vs. the quiet conversations over beer or tea or coffee or on the social backchannels.