A discerning eye: An expression of reality

Let us define an autodidact as a self-taught person. If you are still with us, we may have all just learnt three new words. If you knew them already, then I can assure you that you do not know how they came to be regarded as such in relation to this text. But we are here to see if we can help to you find out.

As an instructional guide, Nick Twinamatsiko’s book “Aphorisms of an Autodidact” will be more than equal to that endeavour. It is a treasure trove filled to overflowing with pithily expressed truisms which are very much the product of the discerning eye as they are the expression of an objective reality. Here is a good place to start, “Many people slowly turn small regular incomes into a big investment, with the expectation that the big investment will turn into small regular incomes.” At a glance, this seems like a sentence-long oxymoron.

However, on closer inspection, we are reminded that if you invest your modest earnings in real estate, the small regular returns in the form of ground rent will validate this aphorism. How about this: “when you put 22 hours a day into your job, you won’t see how people who enjoy longer sleeps can possibly have the vision or stamina for your position. But it could be that you put in 22 hours due to your incompetence rather than the complexity of the job.”

Ouch. I am sure you felt that too. Sometimes we have to put into more hours because more simply means less in the context of our competencies.

“Time tends to add value to things. If we unearth an artifact of 1,000 years ago, we treat it as a thing of great value: we take it to the museum and very many people gather to take a look at it. But that artifact may have been the least valuable thing at the time it was made. It is time, and time alone, that will have given it great value.”

This applies to people, too. We tend to associate old with gold, by the way it sparkles when burnished by hindsight. That’s because hindsight is not only 20/20 in terms of clarity, it is 20/20 in terms of the value that clarity lends it. The next one might be contentious, but it should not be.

“If you have to choose between a Shs5m job that anyone can do, and a Shs 3m job that only you can do, choose the latter. With the former, replacing you is easy. With the latter, you can later set your price.” This is the long view. And so, it does not speak to any quick fix mentalities, which we so cherish, therein resides its contentiousness.

On Page 77, “Dr Tumusiime Rushedge, that inimitable Old Fox, once noted that ‘nudity is nature’. I rejected the idea, largely because he was using it to defend the Kimansulo craze that was then sweeping across the city. But when you ignore the context in which he made the statement, you realise that Dr Rush was spot-on.

Look at Adam and Eve standing in the garden before our nature got corrupted. Look at how we emerge from our mothers’ wombs. Look at the beasts of the fields and the farms. If there is any such thing as the naked truth....”