Playing as a kid is at the same time esoteric and natural! Steve Vai is "only" a kid! Every kid can play like him without even owning a guitar! School is a shit, school is for apes who sniff and imitate, school is for perverts who like to sit next to others and annoy each other, and school is for intellectuals who like to copy thinking they create! the kid does not go to school, the kid stays at home playing! the process is very easy. pick your best guitar and roll it in the earth, in the mud, then pass it through a soft current of water, then burn it with your lighter and last but not the least let it rest in the wind! you will become a voodoo child! you will be able to sing the truth, you will be able to hear everything without concentration, you will be!

If you don't understand my words and harm your guitar it's your fault!

I agree to some degree.

Even though school is far from what it should be, it teach us some stuff that we need to learn, in order to open new worlds and possibilities for us as humans, as musicians and as kids.

one thing school does learn you , and that is to make
sense when trying to make a point .

then again you have obviously know how to 'play as kid'
and will be able tick 4 of the 5 choices of your own poll .

Mr. Vai's music will not bring you from A to B, it's not a straight way, Mr. Vai's music is like a universe spinning around. if you try to watch a fixed point near him you will probably get very confused till you start dancing! For "school" I mean a serious place in which you try to dominate and get from A to B. that kind of school is not a place I want to bring with me when I play. A real school is a place where kids have fun! A real school is like a concert made of chaos!
A newborn is music in silence, best than every music ever made, like a clear blackboard with nothing inside yet. being a kid is something fenomenal!

Excellence is a good thing, and I always give my best! I loved school, science and poetry. I only left competition. That's not a good thing! To be creative is to enjoy small things and I see that quality in Zappa's and Vai's music. Easy little things that evolve in very complex and extraordinary music! I started to be creative when I started enjoying not only very complex exercises but also "normal life" things like cleaning the floor, my guitar, changing strings sometimes, walk in the garden, taking care of plants... To be creative is to enjoy every little action! and you can not do it if you do everything like a race! you can not play fast if you get bored at very slow blues!

Perhaps my two college degrees (summa cum laude bitches) prevents me from understanding any of this

Air guitar is a fenomenal and very practical way to remember every moment of inner peace we had! Also smashing a old cell phone! I also liked to cook and cut vegetables with my little "katana". Mr. Vai does a similar thing breeding bees. You will get rid of every tension or hurt yourself! be careful, try air guitar first

mimetism is the stop of creativity.