Being self-taught is a reason for non-mastery, but not ignorance. If you teach yourself the sword, and never learn how to block properly, well, it's the fault of your teaching style that you get killed (not coincidentally, I also taught myself a martial arts style, and to use a quarterstaff. And yea, I'm horrible at blocking, so I dodge instead). So, no, I'm not excusing my ignorance, just clarifying that it would hardly be without cause considering I first learned of it at age 16 or so. There will inevitably things I forget.
If all of us do not study and become one with the Tao, nature will be consumed by the Great Old Ones who came Before it.