I have 'left the fold' of institutional support early and have been battling the devils (and enjoying the fruits) of independence, on-and-off for 5 years.
I think there is an enormous amount of amazing potential for "super-empowered individuals" to make headway whether in business, technology, or science. Tools are cheap, knowledge is easy to spread. I love being able to travel with a laptop etc. But social reality hasn't caught up yet to support these possibilities to their potential. In particular, I find we need much more social interaction and support than one gets by default as an independence (and this becomes painfully obvious especially after a few months of being out of the institution). We live in a society of solitude. Loneliness has never been so rampant. It is crucial to creative thinking, to memory performance, to cognition, to motivation, to everything. How do we create better environments for this, outside of universities/corporations? Social support is absolutely important and difficult to find. The longer you are away, the harder it is to find.
I have more thoughts on this but will have to get to it later.
I've been doing that for 2 years now. Now I'm starting up a company to commercialize the work I did on a presently intractable problem. If I studied the same thing in med school, I wouldn't be able to get a job at the company I'm starting, but independent study has let me create a hypothesis about solving my unsolved problem.
All my peers who graduated and bought houses and got corporate jobs when I dropped out of school are now looking at mortgages with negative values and shaky environments. I live like a starving artist so I have no assets to lose value. It's a great life, if you don't mind living like a starving artist.
I'd love to hear your further thoughts when you have time. I agree that being isolated is the most dangerous part of being too independent.
I think there is an enormous amount of amazing potential for "super-empowered individuals" to make headway whether in business, technology, or science. Tools are cheap, knowledge is easy to spread. I love being able to travel with a laptop etc. But social reality hasn't caught up yet to support these possibilities to their potential. In particular, I find we need much more social interaction and support than one gets by default as an independence (and this becomes painfully obvious especially after a few months of being out of the institution). We live in a society of solitude. Loneliness has never been so rampant. It is crucial to creative thinking, to memory performance, to cognition, to motivation, to everything. How do we create better environments for this, outside of universities/corporations? Social support is absolutely important and difficult to find. The longer you are away, the harder it is to find.
I have more thoughts on this but will have to get to it later.