Why does so much of academic work feel like fundraising now?

You have become someone who can win funding for almost anything, and that mastery has shown you an uncomfortable truth: how much of the scholarly life is now spent chasing money rather than doing the work the money is for. Resenting that is fair. You did not enter this field to become a fundraiser, and yet here you are, very good at it. The resentment is worth honoring instead of burying, because it points at what you actually value. You care about the scholarship itself, the thinking and the discovery, not the pitching. That the system rewards the pitching does not make your real love for the work any less true. You can be excellent at the funding game and still refuse to let it become the whole point of your days. Protect the part you care about by guarding some time for the actual work, the reason you started, even in small amounts. Spend one block this week on the thinking itself, not the funding. You cannot change the whole system alone, but you can keep from losing yourself inside it.