The history of autodidacticism shows that learning has always been social. The right relationships open intellectual horizons. The internet is full of resources for self-directed learning: for any subject, you can easily find blog posts about essential texts, links to university syllabi, and hours of YouTube lectures. When I attempted to make use of these guides, however, I often found myself disengaged and unfocused. I chastised myself for scrolling through social media while watching online lectures, or forgetting most of the ideas inside the books I read. The problem, however, wasn’t my attention span. It was my approach: I was struggling because I saw learning as a solitary pursuit.