A good and tough word from A. G. Sertillanges:

Those who aim at what is beyond their powers, and thus run the risk of falling into error, who waste their real capacity in order to acquire some capacity that is illusory, are also men of curiosity in the olden sense… Do not overload the foundation, do not carry the building higher than the base permits, or build at all before the base is secure: otherwise the whole structure is likely to collapse. What are you? What point have you reached? What intellectual substructure have you to offer? These are the things that must wisely determine your undertaking. “If you want to see things grow big, plant small,” say the foresters; and that is, in other words, St. Thomas’s advice. The wise man begins at the beginning, and does not take a second step until he has made sure of the first. That is why self-taught men have so many weak points. They cannot, all by themselves, begin at the beginning.

— A. G. Sertillanges, O.P., The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods (tr. Mary Ryan), 27.

Goal for the next stage of my intellectual life: Answer his questions. Begin again from the beginning.