I’m probably as good an example of an autodidact as you’re likely to find. And before you run off to phone the local constabulary, be advised that as far as I know that’s still legal in all 50 states. The term autodidact is, of course, just a fancy way of saying that lacking formal matriculation at an accredited, post-secondary institution of higher learning, and what education I’ve managed to cobble together has, of necessity, been drawn from less traditional sources.

Yet, proud as I am of that School of Hard Knox sheepskin nailed to my office wall, I’ve also benefited tremendously from nibbling the intellectual crumbs dropped from life’s banquet table by any number of better-educated friends, relatives and colleagues.

It probably helps that I came factory equipped with a particular sort of brain, the kind, which like the guidance system on the Mars Rover, seems to have been programmed at birth to continuously search out, collect and store random fragments of eclectic information against some far-off day when such information might actually come in handy.

The process is admittedly a bit odd, particularly in light of the fact that I’ve been given virtually no say in the matter. When it comes to searching out wonky facts, my brain has “a mind of its own” simply humming along day after day, year after year, scooping up those bright ideological baubles and shiny bits of mental tinfoil, then dutifully hauling them back to the cave for safekeeping.

I’ve long suspected that there’s some fundamental natural law at work here, possibly a variation on the process by which Aunt Agatha’s overstuffed sofa has liberated hundreds of dollars worth of loose change from her unsuspecting house guests over the years. There’s nothing diabolical going on there either. The furniture isn’t deliberately picking pockets. That’s just what happens when folks sit down. This is pretty much how my brain works. When it comes to collecting bizarre facts it just chugs along all by itself.

So that may explain how I came to know what I know about Immanuel Kant. Remember him? No, of course not. Why would you?

To be fair, what I know about Mr. Kant would easily fit on a standard 3 by 5-inch index card with room left over for grandma’s rhubarb pie recipe.

Are you ready? Here it is. Some years ago I learned that an 18th century philosopher named Immanuel Kant lived to be 80 years old and became a central figure in world philosophy without once traveling more than 10 miles from the village where he was born. That’s it kids. Class dismissed.

“While that may be a fascinating bit of trivia,” you’re probably thinking, “what, if anything does it have to do with life in Maine in the 21st century?” Quite possibly nothing, yet I suspect that the reason I’ve kept that particular index card tucked away upstairs for so many years is that Kant’s story always struck me as being somehow weirdly and compellingly familiar.

In fact, the more I’ve thought about it, the more convinced I’ve become that, every now and then, over the course of my lifetime, I’ve been afforded the rare opportunity to actually meet one of these “Kantian” characters in real life. They’re definitely out there tucked away on the back roads of Maine. These are men and women who’ve managed to forge remarkably durable, functional philosophies without benefit of passport or frequent flyer miles.

Don’t misunderstand me. I remain convinced that for the vast majority of individuals, myself included, travel serves to broaden our philosophical horizons at least as much as it does the ones we experience on a strictly temporal plane. And it’s easy to see how exposure to novel and challenging concepts might be good for the soul. Obviously isolation and insulation alone aren’t enough to make the magic happen.

In fact, the sort of philosophy I’m referring too, that which emerges from the process of refining only such raw material as may be found within Kant’s 10-mile limit, often sounds overly simplistic. Spoken aloud it might come out sounding something like this:

“What goes around comes around,” or, “Treat people well on your way up. You’ll meet them again on your way down.”

Expressed that way it sounds a lot more like bumper stickers than philosophy. The key lies in understanding that it’s almost never expressed that way.

The folks I’m talking about don’t do a lot of talking, or much writing for that matter. What they’re really good at is living. If you could somehow mute their soundtrack and watch 80 years of life unfolding before you, I’m convinced you’d see exactly what I’ve seen: a philosophy well worth emulating.