In the 5 years that I was enrolled in high school I likely attended considerably less than most others do in their 4 years. Instead, I skipped classes and walked around NYC. Sometimes I'd go to the Hudson river and read - sometimes books for school, or sometimes books I'd picked up myself. I'd go to Barnes and Nobles sometimes, the big one in Union Square, and sit and read. I was really into physics back then so I'd grab some pop physics book and dig into it. One class I enjoyed had us read Pere Goriot, which I loved, and kicked off a 'sit on the Hudson with some Balzac' phase.

And of course sometimes I'd play video games or sleep in, or just try to relax. I'm not going to pretend that there wasn't a lot of leisure in there, and I don't think that's a bad thing at all.

When I did go to school I was pretty social. I skipped class, chilled in various places and hung out with people. I went to classes that I thought were fun if I wanted to, but usually that would become too annoying to schedule around the classes I had no interest in, so I'd fall behind in the good ones and kinda throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I never really experienced bullying, and the schools I went to were pretty good about that sort of thing. Still, I did witness it - there's no school I've seen that doesn't have a "weird kid" who people tease.

I found the article's focus on that interesting, because I hadn't considered it. High school added tons of anxiety to my life because being truant is actually not that easy to pull off, and is something where the government at some point gets involved. I was absolutely labeled as lazy and written off by many, which I think anyone who knows me today would laugh at, since I'm a CEO and work constantly.

For those who were actually different enough to be bullied I can't even really imagine what that must have been like. And we tell kids "high school ends eventually", but it's 4 years of your life in misery, critical, developmental years, and instead of asking what the fuck we're doing we just tell them "it'll be over soon" where "soon" is not at all soon.

What high school gave me was a place to meet people my age, to pick up some interesting books and knowledge (I'd sometimes meet with teachers after class to discuss or trade books), and really, primarily, to date and get a lot of social experience. To me, everything else was to the detriment of my life. I greatly resent much of what was imposed on me, I feel more strongly than ever at this stage in my life that high school was an unjustified, gross burden that made learning harder for me than it should have been.

Like the author I still support the idea of giving young people structured places to learn, but we need to seriously re-evaluate the goals. While many of my peers took on tons of debt, I thankfully was not accepted into any private university, instead starting my adult life with some odd jobs here or there before finally attending state school, where I dropped out after 5 semesters and began working as a software engineer.

All of high school for them was gearing up to this great thing, college, which now most of them associate with massive debt - some of them owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to this day.

It shouldn't be hard to point at the system and go "yeah that's fucked up", but of course, I'm nearly 30 now and the pains of high school aren't exactly top of mind.