Some Terms of Existence

I don’t want to:

1) write stupid reviews of other people’s books

2) write articles for magazines or newspapers where I’m forced to love/hate someone else’s work and resort to terms like “hip,” “trendy,” “self-deprecating,” or “clever” to describe them or their work

3) spend the rest of my life sitting in a piece of parceled space like a toy in a tidy package being told that the work I’ve produced isn’t good enough or what they were “looking for,” as though my job is to read their mind (or understand the poor terms they’ve outlined in their very brief “creative brief”) and know exactly what they’re “looking for.” Or maybe this is my job and I just don’t realize it

4) pander to musicians, authors, directors or actors or any other "artist" in writing, or even with my vocal cords, just to get in good with them. They should be pandering to me, is the way I see it

5) compete with other writers or scholars for the rest of my life, constantly wondering if I’ll get that much needed promotion or appointment to some seat as a dean of some college or board somewhere at some point in my life, secretly hating everyone because they’re a threat to my career

6) sell my work or creations for less than they’re worth out of fear of never "amounting to anything"

7) tell other people I think they’re work sucks or isn’t quite “what they could produce if they just put their mind to it”

8) gaze out of an office window wishing I was outside during the spring, summer, winter or fall every weekday for the rest of my life (I guess you could say, at least I have a window, but this seems to gloss over the true tragedy of it)

9) stick with the status quo, like the government does with everything now (i.e. switch to a consumption tax, it’s a BETTER IDEA), out of fear that change will be too disruptive or scary or I might not know where I’ll end up. Change is good, is healthy for my brain, heart and soul

10) grow more and more afraid of new things


etc…….