Autodidacts are rare because learning things is hard.

I suspect that learning higher math which for me is impossible is how hard learning everything is for most everyone, so I can understand now why there are not more of us.

If learning about the things I care about were as difficult as learning how to use the quadratic equation is for me, I’d never do it.

I gave up learning math (on my own or assisted) when I realized that I could spend hundreds of hours learning one application (the concepts are easy for me to learn) that takes the average 8th grader an hour, and when I finally have it down the moment I move on to the next thing, it is thoroughly and completely forgotten.

My math teacher in middle school – who I was very close to, is why she spoke so frankly to me – once told me reference my inabilities at math that I was the “stupidest genius I’ve ever met.”

That was after I answered a really hard problem about special relativity at an academic team match, yet was unable to reliably make use of the quadratic equation in her class (still can’t, but now I don’t care).

When I was young, I wanted to be a scientist but realized that my complete and utter incapability at math would never allow that to happen.

Now I’m glad I didn’t go that route because it’s much, much easier to get jobs in IT and they pay better and demand fewer hours.

So there’s that.