[honzabe]

"…it consumed all one’s energies, coming on top of the work one really wanted to do. You can see how easy it was, then, not to think about fundamental things. One had no time."

I read this recently on Hacker News, in a discussion about "They Thought They Were Free" (1955) [1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45321663

[Y-bar]

That's the one I was thinking about, thanks!