Let me introduce myself. Italian father Dutch mother, Amsterdam. When mom and I went living in Italy, I had a stroke of nostalgia. I missed my grandmother, who took care of me, father was in Italy, and my mother working. I didn't speak the language and was angry with all. Because "la dottoressa" said this condition could harm me badly we went back to the Netherlands. This wasn't the cause though of the bad feeling I had since I went to school. Which finally, and out of myself, disappeared recently.
Like all children, I went to school (though I rather did my own things because I don't like forcing people). Just to show people I could do what was asked I gently flew along.
The same for secondary school. Luckily, in those days teachers had no objection to me preparing for the final exams at home. I myself, school, and a close friend aroused my interest in physics. At the same time, my interest in the "arts" developed. I read all the books of my "idol" Paul Feyerabend. Somehow I felt that physics (or all the sciences, for that matter) couldn´t give the answers to many questions. Not even (or better said, especially not) a TOE. Nevertheless, I was very interested in the puzzles of Nature. I even saw physics as an art (by which I mean, describing a worldview).
I always walked home with my close Chinese friend while talking about all kinds of exotic physical stuff. I decided to study physics. The first year was fun. I made friends, and to be honest, for them I visited colleges. But the next year they all dropped out, and the fun was gone. A professor was standing in front of a few hundred Imen, and I thought to myself: "I can do this better at home! it was a waste of time and money! The last year though was a nice year. Subjects could be chosen and the colleges were given in small rooms with students and a professor. I can remember very well this old man (81!), Mr. van den Berg, attending a college with about 20 people. It was very nice talking to him.

Making my essay was something I did without much contact with my supervising professor, Hans Radder. Once I saw on his desk the books I was using to help me make my essay. Among those his own.
After my study, I continued to learn more about physics, outside the university and without pursuing a career with my master's degree.
Through time I wrote down a pretty big body of thoughts about many subjects on a big heap of paper. I want to distill a book from them. I owe much to my aforementioned idol Paul Feyerabend (I remember feeling sad when he died in 1994), a great "philosopher of the sciences.

I love this poem by Longfellow:

If thou arth worn and hard beset

By sorrows that thou wouldst forget

If thou wouldst read a lesson

That would keep

Thy hart from fainting

And thy soul from sleep

"Go to the woods and hills!

No tears

Can dim the sweet look

That Nature wears"