tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5563262991864041873.post6291424452267426510..comments2016-10-25T17:01:56.456-07:00Comments on leigh & harriet : Socrates' DefenseAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05848788698504374414noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5563262991864041873.post-72193161503810809642013-12-14T12:21:23.435-08:002013-12-14T12:21:23.435-08:00Leigh, I also meant to ask about your remark that ...Leigh, I also meant to ask about your remark that "being a bitch is super fun." I wonder if you can comment further. I am genuinely curious about all potential avenues writers may have for liberating themselves, and this one in particular, since I have found it mysterious and daunting.<br />John Opsand Sutherlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12190181386169492055noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5563262991864041873.post-88767698629466850402013-12-14T10:41:47.313-08:002013-12-14T10:41:47.313-08:00As with so many of your posts, there are three or ...As with so many of your posts, there are three or four different places I could start. So I'll start with the concept of being an asshole.<br /><br />This is fascinating to me, partly because it is something I have never deliberately experimented with (accidentally, I'm sure I have, countless times), and I've wondered if I should, because I have the bad habit of letting my accommodation of other people interfere with my quality of life.<br /><br />But then there's something recent and raw that hits me: the death last month of Adam Perelman, son of the great essayist S.J. Perelman. After I got to know Adam a little, years ago, I read this bit in his father's Wikipedia entry:<br /><br />"Perelman was not much of a father. He generally regarded children as a nuisance, and his son Adam ended up in a reformatory for wayward boys."<br /><br />This made me furious. I never looked at old S.J. the same way again. I wanted his pals E.B. White and James Thurber to slap him. Because Adam was so lost, and had such a good heart. And here was one writer who did not necessarily make the world better, no matter how witty his writing was.<br /><br />Then I think of my own writing, and how it can only be improved by a certain ruthlessness, and the metaphor of of "kill your babies" that's applied to literary creations. It was Cervantes who introduced this idea, advising the young poet to listen to the feedback from other writers, because we are naturally too attached to our own ideas, like children. So we really have to be assholes to our own writing sometimes, if we want to separate the good stuff from the dreck that will bog everything down.<br /><br />So, are there different rules for how writers treat writing and how writers treat people? Sure. I think there should be. But does that mean one should never treat people as one treats bad writing? Depends.<br /><br />I can see where clinging family members, controlling lovers, friends without boundaries might need to be pushed away. Robert McKee advised writers "Never go to bed with someone who has more problems than you do." I have violated this rule in almost every lover I have chosen, and the consequences are real.<br /><br />So I am left in my typical state of ambivalence on this question. But fascinated ambivalence. So, thank you.<br /><br />John Opsand Sutherlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12190181386169492055noreply@blogger.com