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2002-02-15 | 4:05 p.m.

I need to come back to this idea of asking questions and answering them for myself. Every piece I write should start with a meaningful question; one that's important to me to resolve. I don't have anything to teach anybody else, but if they watch me muddle through a difficult subject, maybe they'll take something away from it. Chomsky says people learn by doing. Even physics is learned this way, like a craft.

Egoless journalism is what I'm after. I don't know anything, I admit it, but this is what I've turned up so far.

I want to change the world but I'm not the world-changing type. I am Walter Mitty. (Should make a badge that says that, a la "I am Salman Rushdie.") I'd like to be one of those people who hops on a plane, rushes to the trouble spots, and ends up in People magazine, but I have a number of excuses why not. One, I don't want to get shot. Two, I'm afraid of numberless afflictions and diseases which are caught primarily elsewhere. (Dengue fever!) Three, it's really hard to get away when you have kids and no money. Maybe when the kids are older, I tell myself.

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