Looking for the self in self-help. Self-mastery is an illusion. We do not make ourselves, and we cannot validate ourselves... more »
How did Wallace Stevens, who lived an excruciatingly mundane and superficial life, write some of the most inventive poetry of the 20th century?... more »
Most novelists don’t make a living at it. "The entire fiction-writing profession resembles a pyramid scheme swathed in a dewy mist of romantic yearning"... more »