If I have one essential word to speak to intellectuals, it is this: You are not your own.
All greatness of thought, all imperviousness of depth, all incalculable height of imagination -- these are initial seeds planted not by yourself. They are givens, effects of the shared chromosomes of parents you couldn't choose, that dance between fortune and the contingency of choice involved with their meeting. You have the glory of gardening these planted mounds of personality, of asserting your freedom and nurturing these seeds into a graded existence, whether immaculate or halfhearted or some infinitesimal point inbetween. But you cannot take responsibility for what is planted. You are only a gardener, and as gardeners we are all equal. From the least and most neglected, to the greatest founts of admiration.
Humility is not a choice, but a realization.
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