I chose my username because when I was young I desperately wanted to be the smartest person in the room. While I did devour knowledge (encyclopedias were bedtime reading; thank you, undiagnosed autism), I was stubborn, overly certain of myself, and far less self-aware than I believed.

Getting older humbled me. I began to see how small and defensive my certainty really was, and I made a conscious effort to grow beyond it. Real knowledge, as you said, breeds doubt rather than arrogance. Learning to be more intellectual is learning to live comfortably beside what we do not know, to accept being wrong as an invitation to learn, and to not take criticism personally.

I am still working on that last one. Criticism is easier to learn from when it is not passive-aggressive, but that seems to be most people’s preferred communication style.