Contents
27 Aug 2025 • 12:36
We’re taught from a young age that school is the starting line—that if you do well, you'll get a job, earn money, and be able to buy the life you want. But for many, school doesn't actually equip you with the knowledge to live a free, self-sustaining life. It teaches obedience, not autonomy. It teaches you how to work for a system, not how to build outside of it.
Education, for too many, has become a pipeline. You leave your community, go to the city, and chase credentials that promise a better life. But what is that better life really made of? A job you don’t care for, a city you can barely afford, and a lifestyle dependent on constant income.
That’s not freedom. That’s a contract.
And the real cost? Communities are drained of their brightest minds. Everyone leaves, and no one comes back. The very places that need leadership and vision are left without builders. Because we’ve been taught that success looks like leaving—and staying gone.
At the heart of this entire cycle is consumerism. We’ve been conditioned to want more, to see ourselves as incomplete unless we have what others have—unless we appear successful. A better car, a bigger house, private school for the kids, dinner at trendy restaurants. Not because we need these things, but because they signal that we’re doing well.
Cities have become symbols of aspiration because they house the visible signs of wealth. We look back at where we’re from and don’t see value. We don’t see nice homes or fancy clothes, so we assume there’s nothing to go back to. But that’s a lie built on aesthetics. It’s not about what’s missing—it’s about what we’ve been trained to admire.
The middle class, especially, feels this pressure. They often admit they’re not paid enough, yet they stay. Because even when they don’t have enough, they’re still part of the game. The game is about staying in motion—earning more to spend more, spending more to feel worthy.
Work becomes tolerable because it pays. Not because it fulfills. The money becomes the justification. The more it pays, the more we’re willing to suffer. And when the money doesn’t stretch far enough—which it rarely does—we borrow. We finance homes, cars, degrees.
Debt is no longer a danger; it's the default.
We get sold the idea that debt is a tool to build your life. But it’s not building freedom—it’s locking you in. It ensures that even if you hate your job, you won’t leave. You can’t. You owe. So you keep grinding. And we normalize this.
We even reward it. Hustle culture, career ambition, “doing what you have to do.” We celebrate people for sacrificing their time and well-being, but we rarely stop to ask: for what?
More often than not, it’s for things we don’t truly need—just things we’ve been taught to want.
This system doesn't lead to freedom. It leads to dependence. And over time, we forget what freedom even feels like. We confuse options with liberty. We think more stuff means more choice, and more choice means more freedom. But all we’re doing is consuming at a higher level.
True freedom is the ability to live on your own terms. To build something that aligns with your values. To say no. But very few people can do that. Because freedom—real freedom—requires self-sufficiency. It requires a different kind of knowledge, one that school rarely offers. It requires the courage to live outside the script.
Most people don't even consider that an option. They’re too busy trying to win the game to realize the game is rigged.
This isn’t an argument against education—it’s an argument for a different kind of education. One that expands your thinking, not just your qualifications. One that makes you ask better questions, not just memorize answers.
Education should teach people how to build, how to think, how to grow food, how to organize communities, how to solve problems locally. Not just how to leave. Not just how to get hired. If the only thing school does is funnel people into jobs in cities, then it’s not helping us evolve—it’s helping us disappear.
Because when every mind leaves and never returns, we lose more than just people. We lose vision. We lose the possibility of freedom.
