I'm not particularly terrified of mediocrity as long as it's not unsafe mediocrity. The cubicle doesn't appeal to me, but, say, I think I could be a pretty happy house spouse. As for meeting intelligent people, sure, they're around in academia, but I'm more interested in meeting smart people who I'd have some inclination to interact with socially, and the Internet seems, in practice, to be better for that. And I'm not setting my own schedule - I'm still doing my own coursework, and would have a couple more semesters of that to go even assuming a best case scenario.