The Learned Mind of the Self-Taught

     Whether a mind learns through self-discovery, or from the writings and lectures of a teacher, what great difference is there in the knowledge gained? Do the theories of relativity alter in some unseen way because they were obtained from a professor standing before a class of eager and semi-eager minds? Do the truths of mathematics lessen in their validity because they are mastered by someone who discovered them outside the classroom?
    The answer: No.
    Algebraic formulas will always be the same, no matter what. The histories of the western and eastern worlds will always be the same. There is no slicing them for personal preference. Reality cannot be twisted or bent to suit a culturally preferred classification; it simply is, and will continue to be. However, the perceptions of reality most certainly can be altered, and will be by those who seek to do so.
    There has been an unnecessary and, in my observations, cruel deprecation against the self-taught mind, or those who pride themselves on the knowledge and experience gained solitarily, outside the walls and halls of an academic institution. 
    If one wished to look at knowledge from the perspective of the universal grandiose, then the human mind is an atom-sized consciousness yearning to understand its origins. The components found in the gaseous clouds and scattered elements, borne of the remains of waned and dead stars, are found within us. The universe is us, and we, in turn, are the universe. There is no differentiation, only the shared atoms of what we call, existence. We are comprised of the same ancestral components from the debris of the crucibles, broken apart by time, heat, and pressure, and branched across the universe.
    A self-taught mind is just as capable as any. Why? Because the knowledge it seeks is universal, it is the unmalleable truth, and because of this, no judgement can be made on how it is achieved. The neurons in our brains that carry our thoughts, our dreams, our questions, and our truths, come from the same cyclic system that is not older than us, but the same age. We are all as old as the stars we look upon in the night sky, and we should look upon them like old friends, created by the same life-giving cycle.
    Self-education is the evolved branch of certain collective components, borne of the universe, striving to understand their origins in the embodiment of a single consciousness.

    Therefore, learn what you wish, when you wish, how you wish, for there is only the smallness of the universe to discover.