“Travel”: Check (study-abroad programs); “Not be chained to an iffy job”: Check (Avoiding downtime on your resume can “chain” you to a job, but school is not considered downtime.)
“Spend my spare time on things like self-improvement”: Check (I never did as many side-activities as I did in college; and a liberal arts degree is often understood in terms of “self-improvement”).
“Sleep cycle of the Chaotic Evil variety”: Check; “Work 14 hour days … cool to have that option”: Check (I studied and did other activities non-stop in college; and a degree helps you work long hours for lots of money once you have it).
Whether you want to do college; or have the energy; or the money; or can get into a prestigious enough program, is another question. But you can get into state schools without a strong high-school diploma by getting good community college grades; state schools are pretty cheap; and some of them have some very good honors programs.
Despite the general anti-school tenor on LessWrong, some of us actually learned something in college, and enjoyed it too.
Looks like the ideal place for you is college. Almost everything in your post points to the lifestyle:
“Flexible hours”: Check; “Studying nootropics”: Check
“Travel”: Check (study-abroad programs); “Not be chained to an iffy job”: Check (Avoiding downtime on your resume can “chain” you to a job, but school is not considered downtime.)
“Spend my spare time on things like self-improvement”: Check (I never did as many side-activities as I did in college; and a liberal arts degree is often understood in terms of “self-improvement”).
“Sleep cycle of the Chaotic Evil variety”: Check; “Work 14 hour days … cool to have that option”: Check (I studied and did other activities non-stop in college; and a degree helps you work long hours for lots of money once you have it).
Whether you want to do college; or have the energy; or the money; or can get into a prestigious enough program, is another question. But you can get into state schools without a strong high-school diploma by getting good community college grades; state schools are pretty cheap; and some of them have some very good honors programs.
Despite the general anti-school tenor on LessWrong, some of us actually learned something in college, and enjoyed it too.