Is this a normal thing? I spent all this time writing a paper and looking at it now it just seems so trivial and stupid.

Like, I'm not actually using my time to produce anything of value. I really starting to think I'm wasting my degree and my time doing this Ph.D. I'm acting like it's a job but it's not really a job because it doesn't pay and it's not going to produce anything useful in the end. At this point I'm only finishing it because of all the time I already sunk into it.