RE: Learn and Create Your Own Way, You Don't Need a Piece of Paper or Approval from Academia
I went away to college and took an accounting class. As the teacher was giving his introduction to the class I challenged his thinking about the use of computers taking over the basic roles of bookkeeping. Not that someone someone wouldn't need to enter the information, but that there would be zero use for ledger books to track everything.
He was so upset with me and said that computers would never be able to do this work. I laughed at him and said he needed to get out into the real world more often as they already did. That I had been installing computer systems, the software, and giving a basic set of accounts based on the type of business since I was 15. That computers not only replaced the ledger sheets, but also made it so a secretary could manage the books instead of hiring an accountant.
Needless to say the teacher didn't like me and made it very clear the entire semester. Didn't matter as a year later I dropped out and became a financial controller for a company and helped take them public. It was a small company that I had as a client for 3 years at that point and they had just grown like crazy. They rewarded my efforts to keep their books straight and allowing them to keep growing by giving a job that normally needs decades of experience and degrees to a 19 year old kid.
I had zero knowledge of how to take a company public and had to do some research. But I learned years worth knowledge in a matter of a few weeks by self studying it. In the end everything went smooth and I was their acting CFO and officially the Financial Controller for a couple years.
IMO Schools are there to teach people how to follow instructions and erase the creativity out of kids. If you have a society full of people who don't dare to dream and are good at following instructions it's very easy to manage. Problems occur once people start dreaming big and wanting more then the scraps the rich allow them to have.
Damn, that's a good story. Sad to see how personal motivations can mess with people's right to think freely and express truths about reality :/ You seem to have done well and been better off as a result of seeing the bullshit in academia ;)
Without question my life is better for it. Might have done better financially if I drank the kool aid and went along with the system, but I'd be a miserable wreck.
I also figured out that the system as a whole is bullshit. We now don't bother to keep up with the neighbors and drive cars that are older with no payments, don't waste money shopping for crap we don't need, and while I work hard my work isn't my life. Ask someone about themselves and most people lead with "I am a [insert profession]" first and foremost. What they don't realize is they are not that, that is just a costume you put on each day to go dace for the man and make some money. You are so much more then your job and so much more then the crap you own, but those are the things most will talk about if you ask about them.
BTW, @krnel thanks for the support you have given on the contest! People are really getting into it and the feedback has been great. When you look back at entries and see the comments from the featured bloggers and their appreciation to being recognized it's very rewarding. Spend a lot of time at this and it's nice with a few upvotes that others have removed the financial burden of the prizes and made it about a break even...give or take, but close enough. Now I can focus on getting my vote up more to help everyone with larger votes. Slow going, but working on it.