Life Goal: Become a Centaur (or a hobo)

I don’t understand. Why am I going to college? What is the point? I let my parents spend thousands of dollars and I study for four to six years (or longer?) and then I have a degree. I can now, supposedly, get a better job. But there are no guarantees. I can’t help but feel this is all just an excuse to avoid the real world and a real job for another few years. But what the hell am I supposed to do except go to college? I don’t want to go back to my parent’s house. I don’t think I could hold down a normal job. I don’t have the first idea about how to get one.

And of course the whole ridiculous thing about this is that I like learning. I find information and intelligence fascinating, pleasurable, sexy. I have been known to spontaneously laugh from the sheer joy of solving a tricky calculus problem. Doesn’t this mean I should continue studying? It’s what I truly love. But I hate school. I hate the pointless pedantry. I hate the self satisfied Cheshire cats who grin at my failure and tell me the best way to get nowhere. (I hate how I’m so paranoid that I actually feel like everyone is laughing at me.) I hate how the beauty and joy and art of learning and academia can be made into something boring and trashy and dusty and dissatisfying. I hate the need to be practical.

I think what I hate most is that I’m terrified that I will fail.

Maybe I should become a hermit. I could set up a tent in the Library of Congress. I would read a new book everyday and live off of coffee and dust mites.