The Autodidact

Breaking into something – anything – is intimidating and hard. The phrase, ‘breaking in’, is illuminating: going somewhere not easily accessible, perhaps forbidden? People born (figuratively) into the practice are brought in invitingly, by someone on the inside. They’re brought through the door, shown around the foyer, coat on rack, here’s the stairs. Autodidacts walk up to a closed door and have to figure out how it opens. Bang it? Fiddle the handle? Maybe if I press this button. The AD spends a serious amount of time feeling the door’s bark, inspecting its mechanisms and generally just figuring out how – and even if – it’s a door.

The task often seems insurmountable and many (most) turn back. Even past the door they turn back, because past the door is the stairs and the coat rack and the place you need to place your shoes and all these things that make the house that no one’s around to show you about. It’s maddening.

However, figuring anything out from first principles comes with this deep respect in the gut of the figure-outer. The AD doesn’t need to be told, ‘Writing is hard’; they know from direct experience. They can say things about how hard it is, in great detail, having run their fingers carefully over every possible surface. In a nice little piece of irony, the autodidact becomes one best suited to teach, over and above those taught.

This point is not so frequently acknowledged. A common idea is that, while they may flounder around in a surplus of failure, their un-influenced approach may yield genuinely new paths in the field – given they actually see things through. It becomes economic: the time and otherwise-avoided-via-teacher pain are worth genuine (potentially revolutionary) discovery. More than this is not oft thought. More than this is that ADs make better teachers for not having them.