Get a grip me old fruit. You've basically described "growing up". The world is a pretty wild place and you need to find your niche or not (rince/repeat). You are not a failed artist at all. You probed at something "had a dabble" if you like and it didn't work out. Never mind. Move on and try something else but keep your interest in mind.
There are loads of professions that I'd like to have done but as it turns out I'm me and that's who I am. Personally speaking I'm a MD of a little IT firm in the UK that can fiddle up a decent 3-2-1 conc mix and do fairly decent first and second fix wood work. I studied Civ Eng.
"The lack of empathy" - really?
If you fancy your chances as an artist then go for it. At worst you will fulfill your ambition and create some daubs. At best, you will traverse reality and be a wealthy living artist.
Just do it.
With AI art gradually improving, I think that line of reasoning will convince less and less people that would otherwise have second thoughts. They would spend a couple of hours on Midjourney and decide that's as far they want to take their "art" hobby. The power of instant gratification will convince many faster than spending hundreds of hours honing a craft.
I think in the future a lot of people's gut reaction to failing as a manual artist will be to retreat to Midjourney or similar to satisfy their remaining desire to have creative work they can call their own instead of trying again. I personally find the near-instant feedback loop very addicting, and I think it will have a similar effect to social platforms in normalizing a desire for quick results over the patience needed to hone a craft.
But as opposed to scrolling newsfeeds for hours, at least the user obtains a creative output through generative art, and it doesn't carry the same type of guilt for me. This kind of thing is unprecedented and I don't look forward to how it will polarize the various communities involved in the coming years.