For me, this read like a manifesto for making your hamster wheel spin as fast as the other hamsters. The OP's core message (i.e., that intelligence is not in-born, but is earned by self-discipline and hard work) seemed very myopic to me, and bound up in the self-congratulatory world of academia. It starts from a position that rests on conclusions about the value of formal education that are no longer dogma for me.
At first, I felt depressed after reading it and all the fawning responses to it. Then, I remembered this parable about how knowledge comes from people, not places:
> "At a gathering of divines, the Mullah was seated right at the end of the room, farthest from the place of honor. He began to tell jokes, and soon people were crowded around him, laughing and listening. Nobody was taking any notice of the greybeard who was giving a learned discourse. When he could no longer hear himself speak, the president of the assembly roared out: ‘You must be silent! Nobody may talk unless he sits where the Chief sits." "I don’t know how you see it," said the Mullah, "but it seems to me that where I sit is where the Chief sits."
After recalling this parable, I realized that I had initially misunderstood the OP's insight. His message was really the same as the Mullah's in many ways.