Carl, I’m not trying to signal non-guru status. If I was trying to signal non-guru status, I wouldn’t write verse! But a verse to remember and repeat as a mantra might be useful to someone trying to resist the slide into cultishness (“I was never your city” keeps going through my own mind). I have little compunction about “looking like a guru” if it conveys information nicely. So long as I’m not actually a guru.
Regarding the rest of your question, I acknowledge no superior in my own specialty, and would be expected to have many superiors anywhere outside my own specialty.
Carl, I’m not trying to signal non-guru status. If I was trying to signal non-guru status, I wouldn’t write verse! But a verse to remember and repeat as a mantra might be useful to someone trying to resist the slide into cultishness (“I was never your city” keeps going through my own mind). I have little compunction about “looking like a guru” if it conveys information nicely. So long as I’m not actually a guru.
Regarding the rest of your question, I acknowledge no superior in my own specialty, and would be expected to have many superiors anywhere outside my own specialty.