I'm a high school music teacher, and I get the sense that you avoid talking about your school years because you've realized what pretty much every musician needs to realize at one point or another if they are going to improve their musicianship.  That the only person who can improve your musicianship is you.  You have to the do the work, the ear training, the practicing, the time song writing and creating.  So here's my question(s).  How did you develop your work ethic for creating music?
it's similar to the way a person might develop a habit of using crack-cocaine, except instead of 1 drug it's more like 1000, because there is at least 1000 different ways to become totally and deeply hooked into music