$100.00 Bounty for Idea #3638Beta

Seeking powerful criticisms of option 1 which lead to a clear choice for concrete action in a defined time frame. The questions are when and for how long to go on hiatus, or not. (End of hiatus means, say, to resume seeking employment, which can itself take months...).

For context, from the 'about' section of this discussion:

I have a BS + MS in optical engineering, and have had a profitable three or so years in the field as an engineer. I enjoy learning about and applying physics, including optical physics, but this makes up a tiny percentage of the tasks performed as an "engineer" so far in my experience, and I see no sign of change on the horizon. Many of the tasks I am assigned seem eminently automatable, and performing them is excruciating for me (though I recognize my good fortune overall). Even when there are micro-problems which require creativity to solve, I still find the process painful, given that they are other people's problems rather than my own. It is the same pain of school: creativity forced to work toward answers to questions not asked.

So, where to draw the line? I think I have fallen in love with AGI research, having followed the area for years, learning and reading bits and pieces. I've been working on independent research in my free time for over a year, in addition to related content (for several years) which is meaningful, creative, educational, largely very fun to produce -- and perhaps ultimately valuable. I'm confident I could publish ideas which will be of interest to the field, and that I would be happy working on all of these things for many years to come.

The question: Should I take a hiatus from my career to pursue independent research (and related content creation), full-time, for some number of months?

Running this bounty on behalf of @tyler-mills. See his other bounty for option 2.