au·to·di·dact [àwtō d dàkt]
noun
self-taught person: somebody whose knowledge is self-taught
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I found out this word just recently from two consecutive events.
First, was after I watched “The Social Network”, I Wikied it (which is my habit before or after watching a film) until i got to Sean Parker’s page. He was one of the founder of Napster. I read more about him then I found out that he was an avid reader since child that lead to him being autodidact. There I got curious about this term and continue to Wiki it. I found out that the famous autodidact was Leonardo da Vinci.
Second, just after browsing Wikipedia, I decided to watch another film which was “Admission”. And there was one character there named Jeremiah Balakian whom treated as an extraordinary teen because he is an autodidact. It was also pointed there that Leonardo da Vinci was an autodidact.
There I thought that I’m kinda an autodidact too. Since I was a child, I love to read story books (My Bible Friends, Best Stories, Sesame Streets, etc.), encyclopedias (Illustrated Factopedia, 28 Volumes Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia and its Medical Guide, etc.) and my mother’s Health&Home. That’s how i started to learning by myself and become interested to information. Whenever I want to do something like during my childhood days, I usually consult books how to do gardening e.g. grafting. Until now, I seldom ask person on how to do things, most of the time I just observe or consult books and now through Internet I search in the web. But I think there’s a downside of this, I get afraid to ask people.