Creative, Intellectual Lives Not Self-Indulgent

“Don’t trade your passion, originality, and curiosity for some second-hand notion of success.” In an essay adapted from a talk delivered to a freshman class at Stanford University in May, William Deresiewicz urges avoidance of ‘playing it safe’. “Resist the seductions of the cowardly values our society has come to prize so highly: comfort, convenience, security, predictability, control. These, too, are nets. Above all, resist the fear of failure. Yes, you will make mistakes. But they will be your mistakes, not someone else’s. And you will survive them, and you will know yourself better for having made them.”