'Opsimath That I Am in So Many Matters'

I was a lazy student who worked hard when the task interested me and coasted the rest of the time. I dropped out of Latin prematurely because I couldn’t be bothered to master the ablative absolute, among other things. Formal education was an evasive game played with teachers. Decades later, now in my “Golden Years,” I’ve reformed, sort of, though I remain a selfish learner. If the subject interests me, I can be obsessive. If not, forget it. In his novel Camp Concentration (1968), Tom Disch gave me a word to describe myself: 

“‘Opsi?’ I asked Mordecai. ‘Short for opsimath—one who begins to learn late in life. We're all opsimaths here.’”

 

I’m more driven to learn things at age seventy-two than ever before – including new words. I have no explanation. It’s not virtue. Again, with the same old caveat: the subject must interest me. Vast fields of human endeavor leave me indifferent, starting with sports and politics. Dr. Johnson’s entry for opsimathy in his Dictionary: “late education; late erudition.” And the OED’s definition of opsimath: “a person who begins to learn or study late in life.”

 

I have no goals in mind. I’m pleased to be stricken with opsimathy, in part because I’m in good company. The OED cites a passage in William F. Buckley’s Windfall: The End of the Affair (1992), his account of sailing from Lisbon to the Caribbean: “Clothing? There are three tricks to Dressing at Sea. They took me thirty years to learn, opsimath that I am in so many matters.”