[Ixiaus]

I came to a similar conclusion as you have about seven months ago. My conclusion was that 9-to-5 takes far too much time and energy out of my own life; I'm essentially giving all of that time to someone just for the ability to pay bills and enjoy eating out on the weekends.

I had very little time to do any of my personal self education or projects (not all of them are programming related either).

I chose to resign from a great company and a great job to pursue my own interests. I've been pinching pennies everyday for the last seven months living off of what passive income I have. I've been (with more-or-less consistency) rising at 6AM every day, showering then meditating and running a spaced repetition program for thirty minutes. Three days are dedicated to projects and two days dedicated to self education.

When I speak of self education I am not speaking exclusively of programming which seems to be the common interpretation amongst techies - it's a full fledged curriculum involving Mathematics, Logic, Rhetoric, Psychology, Physics, Philosophy, and etc...

I've completed two major projects in that time and actually read more books in the last seven months than I ever did in the three years I spent in the work force. 9-to-5 is quite a sham, unless you happen to have a job working in the R&D department of some corporation where you have the opportunity to explore, learn, and be creative that the other cubicle workers do not share.

After seven months though, I'm a bit weary of pinching pennies - I want to be able to eat out at a nice restaurant when I want to or buy that new computer because I want to; or go sailing for the weekend with my girlfriend and friends. Many things require money. My solution here? No job, but contract work - I now have a two month contract that will make me enough money to live for another seven months. I've also considered going into part time contracting so that I can continue to make money but also have enough time to pursue my polymath interests.

Good luck, leaving the group mind is worth the risk (it really turns out there isn't much risk) - you will feel much more free with your intellectual pursuits, projects, and personal development.

[geeko]

@Ixiaus, are you on twitter? Would love to continue reading how you're doing. Your homepage link works as well of course.

Feel free to drop me an email (vp[at]dinhmail.de) when you're traveling to Germany. Beers on me :-)

[julsonl]

I'm also intending of following down this path. There are so much things that I want to learn that I neglected to do when I had copious amounts of free time (hint university). I would also like to know how you're handling this.

[access_denied]

The site you would use to market your part-time contracting could later be re-used as a sort of shop for related products, so you turn it into passive income and cash in on your marketing efforts twice.

[Ixiaus]

I could, but only if I felt the products produced value - if anything it would be a great way of selling my own software if I ever did get around to it.

My primary interest is not in a web startup though - my true love is Aerospace; I'm refining my math and other skills/knowledge so that I can minimize the amount of time I might have to spend doing pre-requisites and get the heart of an engineering degree.

I'm still on the fence about school, but I would love to pursue aerospace engineering.