Intellectual Humility

Intellectual Humility is a small handle on a large fact. Grip it, and the fact becomes easier to carry.

What this concept offers is a pause — one extra beat between what happens and what you do about it. Civilisation, someone said, is measured in that beat.

The idea is simple, and like most simple ideas it is easy to nod at and hard to use. The nod is free. The use costs attention, every day, in small change.

Think of the grandfather who plants a mango tree he will never sit under. Ask him why, and he will look at you as if the question were the strange thing.

In the end, life asks only whether we were awake while it happened. You will meet this idea again this week, wearing different clothes. Now you will recognise it.