Learning Outside the Classroom | Curiosity, Discipline, and the Long Way Around

Learning Outside the Classroom

On curiosity, discipline, and taking the long way around.

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Learning Outside the Classroom

I did not enjoy school from the very beginning. Not because I was rebellious, and not because I lacked discipline. It simply never spoke my language.

From the earliest years, classrooms felt like places designed to reward patience rather than curiosity. The pace was fixed. The questions were predetermined. Once I understood something, I was expected to wait quietly while everyone else caught up.

Waiting became the hardest subject of all.

Ironically, my teachers noticed something before I did. Even in primary school, they would say there was something different about how I learned and processed information. By grade four, I had already completed the primary school syllabus.

The Internet Cafés That Raised Me

Because of that disconnect, I began skipping school. Not to get into trouble or drift aimlessly, but to sit in internet cafés for hours at a time. Those spaces became my real classrooms.

The internet rewarded curiosity immediately. If you asked the right question, you could fall down a rabbit hole that led to documentation, forums, obscure blogs, and ideas far beyond the local curriculum.

For the first time, learning felt alive.

Those decisions nearly got me suspended. Yet, on paper, I still passed as number one throughout primary and secondary school. Quietly, something else was being built.

Accidental Foundations

It was in those internet cafés that I discovered Bitcoin faucets. Visit a site daily. Perform a small task. Earn a tiny amount of BTC.

At the time, it felt like a curiosity. In hindsight, it was my first exposure to systems that rewarded consistency, patience, and early adoption.

Consistency compounds long before rewards become visible.

I did not know it then, but that was my foundation.

Senior Secondary and the Cost of Conformity

Senior secondary school was stricter. Less forgiving. Appearances mattered more.

By 2017, I had enrolled myself into an online computer science undergraduate program. At the same time, cryptocurrency markets exploded.

That year did not ease me in. It threw me into the deep end.

2017 was the year that both broke me and built me.

Gaming the System, Not Escaping It

I loved mathematics, but it was not my strongest discipline. Still, I respected it. So I made it non negotiable.

If math was scheduled in the morning, I attended school like everyone else and left at break time. If it was after break, I arrived later, attended the lesson, and left immediately afterward.

This was not rebellion. It was strategy. It was survival.

Discipline Versus Freedom

For a long time, I believed freedom meant the absence of structure. No rules. No schedules. No ceilings.

Later, I realized discipline is not the enemy of freedom. It is the price of it.

Too much structure suffocates curiosity. Too much freedom wastes potential. Balance is learned, not taught.

Finishing School and Letting Go of the Paper

In 2018, I wrote my final exams. High school ended. I passed grade twelve, but I have never meaningfully used that certificate.

This is not a dismissal of formal education. It is an acknowledgment that credentials do not always correlate with competence.

Narrowing the Focus

After high school, my focus narrowed sharply. Crypto and my undergraduate program became everything.

By 2021, I completed the program. No ceremony. No applause. Just quiet progress.

Markets as Teachers

That same year, I moved deeper into trading. Synthetic indices. Forex. Risk management.

Markets do not care about intent. Only execution.

2022 started bright, then collapsed. That period stripped away illusion and left only fundamentals.

Rebuilding From What Looks Like Zero

By 2024, it looked like starting from zero. But zero is never zero when you still have experience and pattern recognition.

Building Again, With Clarity

2025 brought access again. Zencode. Building. Learning. Recalibration.

That year mattered not because of what was gained, but because of what was understood.

Where I Stand Now

Now it is 2026. Still standing. Still curious. Still building.

School is not useless. It is overrated.

Most days, I still use fifth grade mathematics. Roughly ninety five percent of what I apply daily came from the internet and lived experience.

Closing Thoughts

My path was not straight. It was not clean. It was not approved in advance.

But it was mine.

And I would not trade it for a cleaner transcript.