No School. No Credentials. No Permission. Just Fire in the Belly.
A short exploration of self-education, and how to start even when you're already fighting battles.
“I have not trodden through a conventional university course, but I am striking out a new path for myself. I have made a special investigation of divergent series in general and the results I get are termed by the local mathematicians as “startling.”
— Srinivasa Ramanujan
If you don’t stop and examine the path you're on, you’ll spend your life following instructions you never chose and chasing goals that were never yours. That’s what most people do.
But then there’s that bar scene in ‘Good Will Hunting’. You know the one -
A janitor with a public library card intellectually mogs a smug, rich, Harvard kid, in front of a crowd and the woman they were both trying to impress. This janitor had no degree. No credentials. All he had was knowledge, precision, and an utter disregard for social hierarchies and ‘his place in society.’
That doggedness and brazenness displayed by Will Hunting speaks out to all of us. This scene slams into you. A reminder that deep down, part of you is starving for the kind of defiance Will Hunting throws around.
Do you know why?
Because you love seeing someone without credentials, status, or privilege win in arenas dominated by people who were handed unfair advantages.
Deep down, you know you have talents waiting to break out and take the stage, if only you could get your own version of a public library card and throw yourself into the work. But there’s this chorus in your head, always sneering: Who do you think you are to aim that high?
This kind of high-agency self-education isn’t confined to fiction. History is full of real-life Will Huntings, across continents, centuries, and callings. People who broke the chains of social immobility that tried to trap them where they were born or limit them to what doubters believed they were fit to do.
James Cameron spent his early adulthood hauling freight on California’s highways, with no money for film school. While film students networked their way into studios, Cameron hunched over a Xerox machine during breaks from truck driving, photocopying their dissertations. He taught himself everything from video editing to cinematography with nothing but library access and obsession. He drove trucks by day and fed his obsession by night, refusing to let the road grind his dream out of him. He reverse-engineered his own film school, designed what didn’t exist, and shot scenes no one else knew how to pull off.
James Cameron was a real-life Will Hunting.
And he wasn’t alone.
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in the 19th century. He taught himself to read in secret. He grokked the language of power of the system that did everything it could to keep his mind locked down and his world fenced up. Every law, every punishment, was designed to keep people like him from ever learning what freedom meant, or that it was even possible.
Alexander Hamilton was a bastard child from the Caribbean, an orphan, and a teenage clerk. He had no business becoming America’s constitutional mind and George Washington’s right hand. But when a hurricane tore through his island, he wrote about it with such raw clarity that local merchants raised money to fund a scholarship for him to America. Not because he fit anyone’s idea of a lawyer, but because his mind was too brilliant to keep tied down to the limited confines of his birth.
Srinivasa Ramanujan had no formal mathematical training, no classroom, and no chalkboard to call his own. He wrote equations on temple floors, guided by divine instinct and belief. With no access to journals or mentors, he still mailed his theorems across the ocean, hoping someone would recognize the brilliance erupting from his solitude.
At eleven, Sola Mahfouz was pulled out of school when the Taliban banned girls from learning. Acid attacks were threatened against those who defied the rules. She stayed indoors for years, watching her world shrink. But her grandfather had once taught himself, and that memory sparked a quiet rebellion. With a slow laptop and patchy internet, she found Khan Academy. She started with counting and climbed through algebra, calculus, and physics, one lesson at a time. No school. No teacher. No peace. Just a girl learning under threat. She made it to the United States, studied at Arizona State, and now works in quantum computing at Tufts. No one opened the glass ceiling for her. She launched herself through it.
Cameron, Douglass, Hamilton, Ramanujan, and Mahfouz. All of them used different weapons, but fought an identical mission.
They had nothing. No resources. No pedigree. No blueprint. Just three things:
They caught a glimpse of what they could become and refused to look away.
They didn't give a hoot about who laughed at them or disregarded them
They didn’t pace themselves. They poured themselves into it, day after day, like they had no other choice.
And their work cracked doors open that were meant to stay shut.
So why not you? Why not everyone who feels caged by where they started?
Why does society still pretend greatness only lives in Fortune 500 boardrooms and Ivy League degrees?
It doesn't.
It's not talent that restricts people. Or intelligence. It's this: they don't believe they're permitted to pursue excellence. Because no one ever demonstrated or convinced them that they could even try.
And that's the true tragedy.
People don't rise to the level of their potential. They rise to the level of their exposure. If you've never witnessed someone like you accomplish something exemplary, you won't believe it's possible for you. This is how your dreams die. Silently. Insidiously.
The stories above aren't just stories to admire from a distance. They're blueprints to apply with immediacy and ferocity.
There is a playbook that can be drawn out from the lives and efforts of Cameron, Douglass, Hamilton, Ramanujan, and Mahfouz.
They broke rules, found workarounds, and showed the rest of us what was possible without the permission and approval of gatekeepers.
The three-move combo to break free:
This is your map out. Don’t just read it. Run with it.
Three practical steps to go from being stuck to building something of real significance. Each step stacks on the one before it in a simple, solid progression that is built to take you where you hadn’t dared to go before.
1. Expose yourself to better ideas
Read dangerously. Study obsessively. Your mind requires new inputs to upgrade its outputs.
Frederick Douglass bartered bread for letters. In shipyards and alleys, he learned the alphabet from white boys who never understood what his game was. At night, he traced words on brick walls. Then he found a book called ‘The Columbian Orator’. In those pages, he saw a map out of slavery. He was not just learning to read. He was preparing to confront a system that feared his voice.
James Cameron drove trucks through California with a stack of photocopied thesis papers beside him. He couldn’t afford film school, so he slipped into the USC library, fed coins into a copier, and took the curriculum home. He read it, sketched it, filmed it, broke it, fixed it, and learned how to build scenes no one else could imagine.
Ramanujan studied alone on temple floors, surrounded by people who could not read the language of numbers he was writing. Sola Mahfouz studied behind blackout curtains, under threat of acid attacks, with a flickering laptop and slow internet. Ramanujan only had a worn-out math book. Sola only had Khan Academy and BBC audio. He pulled formulas from intuition. She pulled herself out of tyranny and into quantum physics.
"Men give me some credit for genius. All the genius I have lies in this: When I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. I explore it in all its bearings. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort which I make is what the people call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought."
- Alexander Hamilton
These renegades saw farther because they reached beyond what was comfortable or allowed. You have to walk to the edge of what you know to spot what you’ve never seen. That’s when the real direction shows up. The one no one picked for you.
But exposure to the infinite alone is insufficient. To manifest this vision, you need the courage to stand tall when the world demands you shrink.
2. Muster the courage to be disliked
Stop auditioning for society’s approval. Let them laugh. You’re here to build, not beg for their approval.
No negotiating here. You want courage? You have to look like the guy everyone hates at the party. You have to be the mess, the freak, the one they whisper about when you leave the room. Forget being liked. Bring the parts they told you to hide. Choose ugly authenticity over polished popularity. Don’t flinch when they tear your work apart. Take what’s useful, toss the rest, and keep building.
Alexander Hamilton did not wait for applause. He studied law alone, passed the bar in months, and entered the chaos of post-revolution politics without hesitation. At the Constitutional Convention, he laid out a vision so bold the room recoiled. He expected resistance. He welcomed it. The Federalist Papers were his answer. Eighty-five essays written to drag a fragile country into coherence.
James Cameron refused to soften. He demanded precision in every frame, every edit, every scene. Studios called him arrogant. Crews called him impossible. He did not flinch. He kept building until his films bent reality.
Ramanujan mailed his theorems to Cambridge with no pedigree and no sponsor, only raw intuition and divine obsession. He expected mockery, but he still sent them.
Sola Mahfouz studied by the light of a laptop that could get her killed. She knew what could happen. She studied anyway.
In 1847, after supporters bought his freedom and helped fund a printing press, Frederick Douglass launched The North Star against the advice of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He chose to publish. “I still see before me a life of toil and trials,” he said, “but justice must be done, the truth must be told… I will not be silent.”
You have to do it in the face of ridicule. Ignore the laughter. You won’t build anything real if you're still chasing approval. Let them misunderstand you. Keep going in the face of opposition. Speak your mind and work on what challenges the status quo, and people will get uncomfortable. Let them. That’s part of doing anything worth a damn.
Generating ideas and acting on them courageously is not enough, though. Those are the foundations.
To convert these ideas and courage into tangible results, you must give in to your obsessions and chip away at them every day, no matter how slow it feels.
3. Work obsessively, rebelliously
Obsession is the final weapon. Turn your life into a lab. Create until the world can’t look away.
Obsession isn’t about working hard. It’s about not being able to stop. About showing up for it every day. Even when it costs you sleep, peace, or plans. Day in. Day out.
Hamilton wrote as if time was hunting him down. Fifty-one Federalist Papers poured out of him in a matter of months, each one sharp, structured, and necessary. Treasury reports that now take whole departments, he completed in weeks, alone. He died at forty-nine with a century’s worth of output behind him.
Cameron drew every frame before he shot it. He built his own camera rigs, rewired his lights, broke things just to see how they worked, then rebuilt them to fit the vision in his head. Every shot was precision under pressure. He did not delegate the craft. He internalized it. He didn’t ask what the tools could do. He asked what the story needed, then built from there.
Douglass copied letters from scraps of trash, traced them on brick walls, and practiced sentences until they became weapons. He studied scripture, speeches, and political texts until he could mimic their structure and then cut them open. He was building a mind capable of breaking the silence imposed on his people. He studied maniacally so he could speak for those who were never meant to speak at all.
These usual rejects became completely immersed in their pursuit of excellence.
This is the ‘The Liberation Stack’: A 3‑part system for radical self-education and personal uprising. It’s the mental software used by rebels, autodidacts, and misfits across history. Each layer builds on the previous. Exposure, courage, and obsession. Together, they liberate you.
You chase the right ideas, stop hiding, and let the work take over. One hour, one risk, one shot at a time.
Where does that get you?
To the moment you flip the whole damn table.
Like when Will Hunting declared:
“You dropped a hundred fifty grand on a fuckin' education you could've got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.”
That was the rebellion of self-education, distilled to its essence. That’s how you incinerate the illusions of elite gatekeeping.
All this is fun to read, but how do I tackle my life’s burdens even if I want to educate myself?
This isn’t about becoming a filmmaker, a physicist, a novelist, a lawyer, or a stalwart of any kind. It’s about making the call, not waiting for someone to make it for you. It’s about defining success in your own terms and daring to chase it without being given a certificate for doing so. Not everyone becomes a James Cameron. That isn’t the point. The point is: you get to decide what counts.
Maybe success for you means finishing a short film and pressing upload. Maybe it’s starting a blog that speaks honestly to ten people. Maybe it’s getting one unjust charge dropped for your client. Launching a side project that feeds your family. Inspiring a child to believe in themselves. Taking back one sacred hour a day to make something no one can take from you. Healing one person in pain. Making one thing real.
It's about proving that ordinary circumstances can contain extraordinary potential.
If you’re reading this from a truck stop, a night shift, a crumbling classroom, or a life nobody sees, this is not the end. Let doubt shape your edges. When the world shrinks you, use that pressure to sharpen your will.
Build something so good they can’t ignore it.
How to get started (even if you’re hauling freight, working two jobs, or barely staying afloat)
Before we move ahead, let’s be honest.
Motivation is powerful. But it's not miraculous. Real life is chaotic. You have bills. Deadlines. Perhaps children. You may be caring for your parents. You may be in debt. You may be emotionally exhausted before the day even begins. You may be sharing space with others and have no quiet place to work. Not everyone possesses a quiet workspace, abundant free time, or financial security.
This is not about pretending those burdens don’t exist. This is about choosing to move anyway, squeezing yourself through the space you do have.
Write like Hamilton with gunpowder in the air. Study like Douglass, tracing letters on brick walls, knowing a beating could follow. Film like Cameron waist-deep in freezing water. Solve problems like Ramanujan, scribbling theorems in the dark with no electricity and no guarantee anyone would care. Learn like Sola Mahfouz, hidden behind curtains, threatened with acid, building her future one stolen lesson at a time.
Don’t wait for perfection. Don’t vanish into a cabin or write a dramatic resignation letter. Find one corner of your life and claim it. Carve out fifteen minutes. Half-asleep, half-ready—doesn’t matter. Make something move.
Just start. Or stay stuck.
Here's how:
1. Start with free knowledge -
The internet won’t hand you a degree, but it’ll teach you whatever you want, faster, cheaper, and deeper than most classrooms ever could. YouTube, Substack, Coursera, free PDFs, Reddit threads, Discord servers, podcast archives, blogs, newsletters. These are far superior sources of information compared to even most expensive textbooks used in our universities. Want to write better? Study great prose on blogs. Want to code? Walk through free GitHub repositories and use coding sandboxes. Want to understand business? Watch teardown videos of product launches and read earnings transcripts. Use apps like Notion or Obsidian to build your second brain. Use ChatGPT to clarify hard concepts. Mahfouz pieced together her own education from raw fragments. You can too.
2. Use what you already have -
Your phone is not just a distraction device. It’s a studio, a research lab, a distribution platform, and a note-taking tool. You can code on Replit, sketch designs on Figma, record audio notes, scan pages, read articles, and annotate documents. If you’re learning filmmaking, your phone shoots 4K. If you're learning writing, your phone holds every note you need. If you're learning law, your phone accesses every statute and every legal opinion. Do not wait to acquire more. Begin with what’s in your pocket.
3. Build on the same device -
Apps like CapCut, Replit, Canva, Descript, Notion, Lexica, and ChatGPT let you create, revise, and publish from one screen. Record your thoughts. Draft your writing. Edit video. Design slides. Learn how each tool works by using it until it no longer feels like a tool. If you’re learning storytelling, edit a short video. If you’re learning product design, redesign an app you use daily. If you’re learning marketing, run a one-hour growth experiment. Work at the pace of iteration.
4. Put your work into the world -
Build in public. Share your writing on Substack. Share your designs on X. Share your voice on a podcast. Share your edits on Shorts and Reels. Don’t aim for virality. Aim for visibility. The first attempts will be ignored. That’s what the early days look like. They’re quiet, you feel disenchanted, and quitting is always on your mind. Ramanujan mailed handwritten theorems across continents, not knowing if anyone would respond. But someone did. And that shook the world of mathematics. Keep sending.
5. Study while moving -
If your schedule is packed, turn it into training. Turn long commutes into learning blocks. Listen to audiobooks while you cook. Use text-to-speech to review articles. Read Kindle books on your phone. Use LLMs to quiz you during breaks. Douglass studied while enslaved. Mahfouz studied while forbidden. Hamilton read between war councils. You can study while commuting or folding laundry.
6. Find your crew -
Join online communities focused on your craft. Reach out to others who are learning what you are. Share your prompts. Share feedback. Collaborate on small projects. Build side-by-side. Find one person as obsessed as you and push each other forward.
7. Stack your skills -
Learn one skill at a time. Then combine it with the next. Writing plus video. Coding plus design. Law plus automation. Music plus storytelling. Every time you learn something new, your leverage increases. Every project shows you what you know, what you don't, and how far you’re willing to go. Cameron started with storyboards and ended up building cameras. You will start with borrowed tools and end up building your own systems.
This applies to any craft. Coding. Music. Writing. Legal research. Science. Marketing. Business. Architecture. Even activism.
You do not need a syllabus. You need a hunger for clarity. You need to search, study, build, and repeat.
One tutorial. One project. One habit at a time. Until it compounds.
You do the work, pile it high, and suddenly they’re asking where you came from.
You weren’t born to be a background character in someone else’s story.
Whose permission are you waiting for?
Liberation isn't awarded with a diploma. It's extracted from a system designed to keep you contained. It demands practical action: absorb knowledge beyond your supposed level, maintain your position when ridiculed, and work with an intensity that unsettles those around you. That's exactly what Cameron did between truck deliveries. What Douglass accomplished with stolen moments of literacy. What Ramanujan achieved on bare temple floors with an empty stomach.
The Liberation Stack isn't abstract theory. It's a mental toolkit with concrete applications. A reality where meaningful work comes from those willing to commit daily, not from credentials hanging on walls. Your starting circumstances might be harsh, but they don't determine your destination.
Don't wait for perfect conditions. Use the public library card. Work with whatever technology you have. Begin with what's available, not what you wish you had.
And reshape everything in your path.
Comment with the first skill you're going to tackle using the Liberation Stack.
I’m still piecing this together. If you’re on your own path and want to see what works and what breaks, subscribe to ‘Promethean Spirits’.