Let Your Life Speak
by Parker J. Palmer
Chapter II
"Now I Become Myself"
Copyright ©2000 by Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers
San Francisco, CA

could admit that to myself. Try as I may, try as I might, I have
never had the gifts that make for a good scholar -- and remain-
ing in the university would have been a distorting denial of
that fact.

A scholar is committed to building on knowledge that
others have gathered, correcting it, confirming it, enlarging it.
But I have always wanted to think my own thoughts about a
subject without being overly influenced by what others have
thought before me. If you catch me reading a book in private,
it is most likely to be a novel, some poetry, a mystery, or an
essay that defies classification, rather than a text directly
related to whatever I am writing at the time.

There is some virtue in my proclivities, I think: they help
me keep my thinking fresh and bring me the stimulation that
comes from looking at life through multiple lenses. There is
non-virtue in them as well: laziness of a sort, a certain kind of
impatience, and perhaps even a lack of due respect for others
who have worked these fields.

But be they virtues or faults, these are the simple facts
about my nature, about my limits and my gifts. I am less gifted
at building on other people's discoveries than at tinkering in
my own garage; less gifted at slipping slowly into a subject
than at jumping into the deep end to see if I can swim; less
gifted at making outlines than at writing myself into a corner
and trying to find a way out; less gifted at tracking a tight chain
of logic than at leaping from one metaphor to the next!

Now I Become Myself

27

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