So I was on the phone last night with my cousin, and we were talking about her sister, who's this brilliant, super-talented kid. A really great pianist and visual artist, but who, like most 18-year-olds, is lacking direction. Anyway, and I was just saying what a shame it is that she's not focusing on her art, because there's so much she could do online with it.
And my cousin goes..."like what?".
It took me a moment to realize it was a genuine question, because my brain was a-buzz with all these things you can do online if you've got a bit of artistic talent. So I started telling her, how her sister could put up her art on social media, or create prints of it, you know, gather a following, all that nice stuff that the Internet's made easy and accessible to us. (Well, not easy. Easier than it was in the past. But not easy.)
She was so surprised. Like "I never thought of that."
See, theirs was a very traditional education, you know, school, college, now she and her siblings are doing Master's degrees. Not because they need them, it's not that kind of high-brow field. But you know, it's what people do. Needless to say that part of the family did not take it kindly when I dropped out of high school. They don't really 'get' the whole unschooling concept, because that's not what people do.
You're supposed to follow the path.
Except my sense of direction's so bad, that I've been gone off the path a long time. I can't even see it back there. And maybe it's this difference in education that accounts for this. Because I've always been the kind of person who's like "okay, I'm interested in X, how can I pursue that?", and breaking away from the traditional schooling path, I had to figure out that last part for myself.
When I was 15, I no longer had teachers to tell me how or why or what to study. Actually, scratch that, they never tell you why in school.
So if I was interested in psychology (of which I am a big, big fan), I'd go online, or I'd buy a book. It was basically, okay, how can I dig deeper into this subject that interests me? And thankfully, the Internet provides a lot. At 15, I was following Yale classes on psychology because it's something I genuinely enjoy. I was going in 10 directions at once, and I still am. I'm interested in a lot of things, and being exposed to all these varied sources of information, I was getting so much input about what other people are doing on X subject, and that broadened my own horizon so much.
And not having anyone to tell me was cool, because it forced me to figure out a path myself. And that's something I see in my 14-year-old brother, too, who's been unschooled all his life. He has this tremendously broad palate, and range of interests, and has developed such keen skills for uncovering stuff, and getting to the bottom of things that interest him.
My cousins, on the other hand, don't. They're very clever, they're well brought-up, and whatever, but there's something lacking there. That instinct to go after things you find exciting just isn't there. And they've sort of gotten trapped in this never-ending system cycle of having someone else direct their education and implicitly, their knowledge, even though they're fully fledged adults by now, and should be in charge of that.
I have another cousin, a boy, who's the same age as me, and who's very smart, and well-read, and I think he would really like to do what I do, which is to write. We had this conversation like 2 years ago, how he'd like to, but never tried it. I encouraged him to go for it, to find somewhere to write, and just start doing it. Needless to say, he did not. Recently, he just got into this two year journalism degree, so by the time he gets the official school greenlight to write, he'll be almost 26. By which point I will have worked as a writer for 7 years.
'Cause I got into it at 19. Actually, I got into writing at 17 here, but at 19, I started freelancing, and making money off it. Obviously, no school, definitely no journalism degree. I just really liked writing, and came upon Steemit (as was), and started writing.
Couple of years later, money was kinda tight, so my first thought was okay, how can I help and what am I good at? Freelance just came natural, and it turned out to be an extraordinary Godsend. I love my job, it's so much fun, and such a free, liberating experience.
funny thing is, that part of my family, after being appalled that I was quitting school, has always looked down on me for not going to university for like 5 years, like they all did. Must be kinda stupid, right, if you don't even have a college degree?
Not really bitching about my fate here. I have a job I love that allows me to travel and see the world -- I'd have to kick myself if I was bitching about it, you know? I do, however, take enormous pride in what I do, and in my own intellect. Must be because I know I built all that myself. It wasn't given freely, and no one pointed out the way.
All in all, I think I got the better deal, though, because my schooling experience left me with this pro-active attitude. If I'm interested in something, I'm very hands-on about it. I try stuff. I put a lot of content out there, to see what works, I don't really expect anyone to outline the path forward. I don't think there is one, I think you have to make it yourself. And all in all, I think that's a better mindset to go into the world with, because infamously, where there's a will, there's a way. But if you expect someone else to figure out the path for your, and put you on it, you're playing a dangerous game.
More often than not, the system puts you on the path it wants for you, and you may find it differs quite a bit from what you had in mind.
Of course, by the time you figure that out, it's kinda late, and you're missing critical tools to carve out your own path. Which isn't to say there aren't those who manage to do that, just that it's so much harder, the later you leave it.