Never used Objective-C or have done any serious programming (I work as a DE which mostly do data modelling, so I don't consider myself a serious programmer), but I feel the same as the author.
The work has bogged down whatever interest I have in programming, and the only sane solution is to somehow magically remove all financial burdens, go into a cabin in a mountain, and program my own projects and read some science, preferably with a dog and a fire.
I don't know if this will be helpful or inspirational or depressing, but your comment made me think of Paul Lutus, who pulled off at least some parts of the dream of living in a cabin and writing software. Here's an interview he did with Adam Gordon Bell on Bell's CoRecursive podcast (transcript and audio):
https://corecursive.com/remote-developer/
To give just a taste, here's a forum post that quotes a few highlights from that CoRecursive episode:
https://retrocomputingforum.com/t/remote-developer-1970s-app...