“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:43-45).
When Rudyard Kipling was sixty-nine and living quietly in the English countryside, an aspiring young writer sought him out for advice. “Time after time during my visit,” the young writer said later, “He came back to this theme”:
The individual always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you’ll be lonely often and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
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