I worked in a hardware store in Cambridge MA, partied very hard, and enrolled at the Harvard Extension School, taking a classes on James Joyce, Playwriting, Chemistry, and Neurobiology. I don't think I completed the last two. I walked out of my Neurobiology lab final because I was about as prepared for it as you likely are at this moment. I finished up the hiatus with a road trip across the US on which I read Broca's Brain and Gödel, Escher, Bach. The time was transformative for me. It wasn't until some time after I re-enrolled that I started making what I consider to be progress, but without that break, I wouldn't be where I am at today. I think the important thing for me, was that I knew all along that it was a temporary detour, and that it wasn't a lifestyle that I wanted to settle into. That was a freeing aspect of it.