I am an autodidact.
It’s not something I admit to just anybody, mainly because most people don’t know what an autodidact is. In fact, many would embarrassingly interpret it as something that the nuns warned all of us Catholic boys against. Others would think it implied I was the guy in the service department of a car dealership who pushed the $200 alignment special when all the customer actually needs is a fuse replaced under the dash. Still others think an autodidact is something a didact does all by itself, which is actually close to correct, but not very enlightening.
I am an autodidact.
It means than when I was growing up, the experts had not yet invented the diagnosis of ADHD. It means I, according to all my teachers, was “not working up to his potential.” It means…well, it means, when I was 8 years old, my dad bought the deluxe World Book Encyclopedia set, with gold gilt page edges, and white fake leather-bound covers.
No sooner was the collection on the bookshelf next to the Philco 24” Diamond “D” TV set than I set out to read all 19 volumes including “I-J,” “K-L,” “Q-R,” “U-V,” “W-X-Y-Z,” and the “Reading and Study Guide.” Page after page, I buried myself in those entries—Aardvark to Zymurgy.
Now, I was not completely abnormal; I did play Little League, ride my bike, and go to swimming lessons at the “Y,” but nearly every other moment, as Paul’s remarkably clean grandfather said in “Hard Day’s Night,” I had my nose in those bloody “booooks.” Truth is, if I close my eyes and search my nasal memories, I can still smell that World Book smell. The scent was close to the same as one of my father’s new Oldsmobiles—the tang of chemicals—ink, chrome, leather, and a hint of Detroit in August. By the way, one of my favorite entries was all about the Olfactory Mucosa.
An autodidact is a self-taught person.
Having read through that encyclopedia cover to cover, I was provided with a huge amount of information about Geography—like French West Africa; Philosophy—like Existentialism in French cinema; Politics—like Dag Hammarskjöld; Science—like how ICBMs work; or History—how Algeria won its independence from France; Economics—the impact of hand-made Belgian lace on textile prices; Miscellany—like the flora and fauna of Lake Titicaca; and Art—why Renaissance painters liked egg yolks. I still have most of that data from the 1957 edition in my head. Most of it is hopelessly outdated, tinged with old, discredited ideologies, warped by conventional knowledge that is no longer conventional or even slightly useful knowing. I mean, if I knew then what I know now about plastics, and King Leopold…well, he turned out to have been a bit of a monster, right?
To be precise, I was a peripatetic autodidact.
That means I walked around a lot while I was reading. Like I said, we didn’t know about hyperactivity back in those days. The modern diagnosis now, I’m afraid, does me little good. I seem to have outgrown most of the old symptoms and the medications I take now control inflammation rather than concentration. I’m just glad I finally know why I read that encyclopedia—twice actually. And thus, why I am still a tiresome, boorish know-it-all. Even if most of what I think I know is wrong. Except, of course, for that bit about the Olfactory Mucosa.
This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of Omaha Magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
