One of my favorite Monty Python sketches is the Village Idiot. Not because I feel like one on most days, but because it also captures a quintessential self-deprecating English humor and attitude.

When I met Marion Blank in New York a few months after moving here, she had just turned 89 and was as bright as a button. We both talked enthusiastically about Cambridge. Her life here was so full of strife and difficulties. At one point, she said, “You will never experience anything like Cambridge”. I believe she was right. Those five years will be like a fairytale. Slowly, I have stopped looking and seeking what I experienced in Cambridge. It is a holy place, a sacred town, and it cleanses your mind and spirit. I was already quite sheltered before I began my studies at Cambridge, but living there certainly removed me from the harsh realities of the real world.

When I moved to New York, I was pretty much a village idiot in a big city. Ezra said to me early on, Oh come on, get over your high horse of romance. He tried opening my eyes and helping me see the world around me, but I was always too stubborn and stuck in my idealism. What it took for me to recognize my idiocy is perhaps too painful a story, but it is indeed a humbling moment to accept one’s limitations and childish expectations of people and life in general. Now, despite this important self-realization and awareness, I believe I will never be able to match the machinations of most people around me. This deficiency is something I will have to live with for the rest of my life.

But village idiots play an important role, according to John Cleese, “There is this very real and pressing need for someone who almost anyone can look down on and ridicule, and this is the role of a village idiot”.