tired, bored, or lacking enthusiasm,
typically after having had too much of something
a state of disillusionment and sadness.
You see through everything and have no illusions
about what is true.
There are so many ways to think about and model and map one's life, and we've explored quite a few of them in Convivia. One we haven't taken up is the impasses encountered and dealt with successfully (or not). Sometimes those are brought about by external events and forces, but sometimes they arise in our own minds—when we stall out, or tire, or become jaded with something we've been engaged in. We reach a state of disillusionment. And then what?
It seems to me that punctuated equilibrium is a good model for life's course. In general each day is pretty much like the one before and the one after (habits, routines, established patterns) EXCEPT when something HAPPENS, and then there may be a noticeable break within the steady-state: the path ahead may bifurcate, and one chooses one branch and not the other. But in general it's homeostasis that's the usual state, and energies are allocated to actively maintain a balanced and 'stable' situation: keep on doing what you're doing is often the safe/easy choice. We could look at how balance/homeostasis is maintained, or might instead look at the episodes of change (what precipitated, how they altered the future) to appreciate the skills required to keep standing on the surfboard as the wave carries you forward.
A person's life course can be thought of as a succession of branches, and a series of choices made by oneself or imposed by some outside force
...you are accepted or not by a college, and thus set on a path...Looking back over one's life, the fateful moments of change in the path stand out pretty clearly, as points at which everything changed
...when you met the person who would become your spouse, or when some event altered what seemed to be the continuity and sameness of everyday life: somebody important died suddenly, or a significant other announced that they were DONE, or a medical diagnosis or sudden crisis like a stroke or accident interrupted...and the sense of equilibrium/balance is punctuated and a different path ensues.
From the perspective of the present, one has an array of things being pursued—projects, interests, obsessions—and one goes along day to day and year to year, and constructs an identity out of those pursuits. And it sometimes happens that a domain or an interest doesn't seem as stimulating as before: the questions that made it attractive are answered, or seem answerless, or lead nowhere one wants to go. Or the other bozos belaboring the same thing have become tiresome in their cluelessness. And then one day you come to the realization that something isn't working for you, that your enthusiasm or engagement has waned, that you are to some degree disillusioned. You are jaded, and abandon that path (which you may have put a lot of energy and attention into). Probably everybody has experienced something of the sort, or perhaps looks back down the chain of branching decisions and sees many episodes of such disaffection and abandonment of pathways. It may not be some single event that precipitates, but might be a matter of slow accumulation of dissatisfaction, of boredom, of same-old same-old, of some realization that it's no longer a care-about, or maybe even a belief. And sometimes the contradictions of a pattern or situation build up to the point where one feels out of balance, and needs some sort of reset or other escape from the stress of untenability, and simply decides to stop doing something, to abandon a pattern that is no longer gratifying.
Or one may tire of others rabbiting on, saying the same by now inane things and belaboring what seems obvious, such that the words themselves are tiresome to hear repeated as if they're new, as if they've been emptied of their power to galvanize one's interest or inform one's commitment to what lies behind. It's a bit like having heard a tune too often, so that it seems drained of what first attracted you to it, that there's nothing new to be found in it once you've heard it to the point of overfamiliarity. It becomes annoying. How much is that doggie in the window?
Is "becoming jaded" something that has happened often in your experience, an expected eventual point you've often encountered, or has the feeling arrived as a disorienting surprise? And what do you DO when you feel unfulfilled by a formerly important something? How do you decide or negotiate what comes next, especially if yours has been a long-time engagement? How do you find the next thing, or seek the next community? What strategies have you developed to cope with the dis- state of mind?