Well, I was under the impression the question was being posed in the present tense, and my response was written with that in mind..! That creates quite a different perspective with all this being in the past.
But if you really dislike unpaid intern work (and at 5 years I would certainly dislike that situation which sounds almost criminal to me).. why not get a job doing something else that you get paid for? It sounds like you wouldn't dislike anything much less than what you're doing right now; you might as well get paid for it, IMHO. Good luck to you, in the present. 
__________________
“We use our minds not to discover facts but to hide them. One of things the screen hides most effectively is the body, our own body, by which I mean, the ins and outs of it, its interiors. Like a veil thrown over the skin to secure its modesty, the screen partially removes from the mind the inner states of the body, those that constitute the flow of life as it wanders in the journey of each day.”
— Antonio R. Damasio, “The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness” (p.28)
|