To Learn Is to Burgle

A lesson from the earth—and Bilbo Baggins

The earth doesn’t ask permission to grow. Right now, as we speak, roots are prying stones apart, silently and steadily getting what they need in the dark.

We often picture learning as something handed down in a classroom, with tidy maps drawn by people we’ve never met. But much of the learning that truly nourishes us doesn’t arrive as a gift—it must be foraged. Or stolen.

I enjoyed school, even when some teachers didn’t quite enjoy me. Still, like many of us, I found that it left me underfed. Hungry, not full. Not failed, just unfinished.

If you rely only on what’s offered, you may remain malnourished. To be fully fed, you sometimes have to trespass—climb the fence, open the window, and take what no one thought to give you.

The First Burglar Was a Woman

Think about it: one of our oldest cultural stories—one that still resonates deep in the psyche—begins with a fruit taken from a tree. I won’t pretend to claim all its meaning. But I do notice this: it features a burglar as its female lead. Yes, a burglar in need of redemption—but a thief nonetheless.

And Then There’s Bilbo

Bilbo Baggins didn’t set out to be a burglar either. He was a hobbit of comfort and second breakfasts until the story (he blamed Gandalf) pulled him from the Shire. His unexpected companions, the dwarves, needed someone to sneak into a dragon’s lair. Bilbo hadn’t trained for this. He learned by creeping through shadows, riddling with Gollum, and pocketing the Arkenstone with shaking hands.

Some learning happens not in the middle of a lesson plan but in the middle of a heist.

For some of us, school was supposed to be a key—but it felt more like a lock. If that was your experience, here’s the good news: you don’t need permission. You can still break in. Or break out.

The earth knows this secret. Seeds don’t ask the soil if it’s ready—they burrow in, drink deep, claim their space.

Bilbo didn’t ask Smaug for a tutorial.

The Private Practice of Learning

Even though I liked school, the most important learning I ever did happened off the books. I chased questions no one assigned, devoured pages no one had recommended. I cobbled meaning together from borrowed scraps, like gold gathered in secret.

Sometimes it felt like trespassing. I realize now that I did it most in graduate school, not childhood. Maybe I was a late-blooming burglar.

There’s a strange delight in learning like this—outside the walls, beneath the radar. You begin collecting things no one remembers giving you. You carry odd treasures, tucked away under the floorboards. Occasionally someone asks where you learned that thing you just offered. You shrug. You honestly don’t remember.

Quiet Theft and Self-Invention

I picture Bilbo in the Lonely Mountain—small, steady, creeping through danger. That’s what it feels like to learn outside the lines. Quiet. Improvised. Alone.

No one rang a bell when I found my own answers. There were no cheers at the end of regulation time when I cracked something open in silence.

But that’s the nature of this kind of burglary. It’s patient.

Bilbo didn’t storm the gates. He waited. He listened. He moved when the dragon slept.

The earth moves like this too—roots inching, seasons shifting, water carving canyons with no witnesses.

What Have You Stolen?

So I wonder—what knowledge have you quietly taken from the ruins of what left you hungry?

What did you pocket and keep?

The world doesn’t always give you what you need. Sometimes you have to slip past the guards, find your way in, and take it.

Some of us are thieves of truth, pocketing it quietly, using it privately, and waiting for the moment—maybe now—to share what we found in the dark.

Is it time?