The Universe Is Not Locally Real

[Anomalocaris]

It was less than 5 years after Ph.D. for me, and it is still painful.

Although I think the meaning of the fun 5 years in the article was the time doing the Ph.D., not the time afterward.

You only live once.  I would rather have a PhD and be poor than be rich without one.  Assuming that I could have ever been admitted to a PhD program (improbable but not impossible), my likely, perhaps only, major accomplishment would have been to have made the top half of my graduating class possible.  Still, math & science are fascinating enough subjects to have made such a journey fun!

I know a couple of PhDs who clearly compartmentalized their intelligence to such an extent that no hint whatsoever of it can be perceived in any other aspects of their lives.