Autodidactism
Autodidact (n.)
/ˈôdōˌdīdakt/
A mythic creature forged in the wild, unsupervised fires of curiosity. A scholar without a syllabus. One who learns not because they were told to, but because the gods of Wonder and Flame whispered, “Go deeper.”
While others paid tuition to be taught what to think, the autodidact stole into forbidden libraries at midnight, asked better questions, and left with sacred scrolls in their teeth.
In plain terms?
An autodidact is someone who teaches themselves—no degree, no classroom, just hunger, guts, and usually a very full bookshelf.
I entered college with a flickering torch in hand, convinced I would find other flame-bearers. I had imagined… togas, of course. Columns. Perhaps a few sword-sharp dialecticians arguing in Latin under ivy-covered archways, their voices trembling with the thrill of discovery. I imagined lovers of the logos, not just of the resume line. I imagined a sacred grove.
Instead, I got fluorescent lights and vending machines and—mostly—students who were there not for the pursuit of truth, but for economic security. Who could blame them? We are all haunted by rent. And to be fair, I chose a community college—City College of San Francisco—and it was one of the best in the state. I don’t regret it. I did well. I joined the Philosophy Club, was inducted into the Honors Society, and found a few glimmering minds who sparked like flint against mine.
But support is more than a GPA. Support is someone saying: You are brilliant. Keep going.
I had no such voice behind me. No scaffolding of familial wealth, no trust fund safety net. Life happened—as it does to so many of us born outside the soft fabric of legacy; I had to stop going.
And yet.
When San Francisco locked down, when the city turned ghostlike and dream-thin, I chose books. I chose language. I began to teach myself Latin, then French, a few poetic swirls of Italian, and a hesitant toe into Hebrew. No grades. No tuition. No applause. Just flame.
I don’t learn for status. I learn because I am compelled. Because the dead speak through syntax. Because old words feel like keys.
And because I can’t stand not knowing.
History, too, I consume—not as rote memorization [[[How vulgar is that?—middle finger to nasally, pedantic fucks smugly interrupting with “What year was that?” while I’m trying to relate a mind-blowing historical tale.]]] but as epic: as lived agony, lust, war, rebellion. The tales of women who defied kings, of revolutions sparked by bread and ink. These stories bled into my paintings. My poems. My rituals.
I became my own university, fueled by wine and fire and silence.
And I must ask—what have we done to the temple of learning?
We’ve stripped it of ecstasy and replaced it with debt.
We’ve transformed education from sacred initiation to economic necessity. Credentials, not curiosity, now determine your worth. I live with the ache of that every day. I have no degree. Just books. Just art. Just blood on the page and a dragon in my throat.
And when I recall some of the things I heard in those sterile classrooms—“C’s get degrees”—I feel that ancient fire recoil.
Not everyone, of course. But too many. Too many attending not because they hunger to learn, but because they fear poverty. Some go because they crave the perceived status it brings.
And aren’t those the greatest insults to the noble passion of learning?
Degrees are now currency in a dying empire. Most pursue them not out of love for learning, but because economic survival requires institutional validation. But if validation is the motive, what exactly is being validated?
How many of today’s students would choose to study if survival weren’t the price of admission?
How many former students keep learning after they get those “precious” credentials because they have a passion for learning?
I am living proof that a mind can bloom without permission.
And yet no one wants to recognize that. To them, I am a wildflower, not a pedigree. An ex-bartender, extremist adventuress, and abyss-walker who needs to “learn her place.” Uncertified. Undomesticated. INVICTA!
Therefore, I’m highly suspect and prone to cause discomfort in those that believe their credentials=(moral and intellectual) superiority.
But my work speaks in forgotten tongues and eras. My mind is sharper than ever. And my education?
Unrepentantly mine.
So no—I don’t have the paper.
But I have the fire.
And I’ve made it sing.
A passion for learning that no institution could birth—and none can extinguish.
— Majeye
Invicta vigilias incendit—et vos, spectatores, iam ardetis.
For any autodidact who wants to learn Latin, I highly recommend this course. I went through 2 other courses before I found this one—one was too hard and one way too easy. The pedagogy in Cambridge Latin Course makes it easy for learning on your own; it builds vocabulary and skill before you know it. That’s how you know it’s good pedagogy—the learning just sneaks up on you while you’re having fun. The passages to translate are delightful, strange, and funny. Plus, there’s neat historical information thrown in as well. Ignore the Dogbear fur. ;)