"To those who consider me an idiot for not attending university, who stick up their noses at me with the assumption that I must be less intelligent sans a degree, let me tell you something: I consciously chose not to attend university, because I didn't want to. You think that's a lame excuse? People expect you to attend university, people expect you to lust for paychecks, to crave the competitiveness of the cooperate world, of being noticed, successful, respected because of the degrees you have framed on your walls, the money you have in the bank, the car you drive, the house you live in, the clothes you wear. People expected this of me, but I didn't want any of those things, so I said "no."

I said "no," because I know myself, the way in which knowledge blossoms within me, and I have never needed the straight-jacket of schools to flourish. I am fascinated by things which cannot be contained to a room. Where do you think knowledge comes from, before it is brought into the classroom? From the world outside the school. Why not seek knowledge at its root, where it stems and grows, before it is cut and pruned into spoon-fed curriculum?

I said "no," because I don't need debt from school loans until I'm grown with children. I don't need society's approval, the pat of the back, the "welcome to the club of college educated people." I am the wild, untamed spirit, I am the system's worst nightmare, the nonconformist. I can't tell you about four years bent over a desk, or any years bent over a desk, as I've never attended school, but I can tell you about places you've only dreamt of.

I said "no," because I am a human being and I never know what day may be my last one on this earth. I wasn't about to waste four years or more doing something I wasn't even interested in, while waiting to make the kind of memories I would think about if I were bleeding out and dying. You don't wait to do those kinds of things, you do them now, you do them today.

I said "no," because I refused to be bullied into something I didn't want or need, because I'm not coward, not afraid to think for myself. "No," because I know that if you want to change the system, the world even, you must start with yourself and that's the most difficult thing to do.

Know that there's a good chance you are calling me a fool because someone else wants you to, because the system so enmeshed the idea into your brain from a young age, that people who don't abide by the rules are fools. Well, I'm telling you now, you've been lied to, the fools are the ones who blindly swallow whatever's been fed to them, who never question things, who let others think for themselves, who do one thing with their life, when they want to do another. And the idiot, the idiot is the one who assumes things about people they don't even know, who think less of them because they're not holding a piece a paper." - Susanna-Cole King