When You Adapt A Book, You Really

The Key Thing Is Managed Awareness Of Your Role In The World And History. Think Too Much And You Know You Are Nothing. Think Just Enough And You Know You Are Small, But Important To Some. That's The Best You Can Do.

God: I Own You Like I Own The Caves. The Ocean: Not A Chance. No Comparison. God: I Made You. I Could Tame You. The Ocean: At One Time, Maybe. But Not Now. God: I Will Come To You, Freeze You, Break You. The Ocean: I Will Spread Myself Like Wings. I Am A Billion Tiny Feathers. You Have No Idea What's Happened To Me.

But The Grind Has Begun. The Windows Don’t Open, And Even The Availability Of Near-constant Jokes About Jews And Mormons Fails To Stem The Tide Of Frustration, Decay. We’ve Reached The End Of Pure Inspiration, And Are Now Somewhere Else, Something Implying Routine, Or Doing Something Because People Expect Us To Do It, Going Somewhere Each Day Because We Went There The Day Before, Saying Things Because We Have Said Them Before, And This Seems Like The Work Of A Different Sort Of Animal, Contrary To Our Plan, And This Is Very Very Bad.

You Might Not Be Able To Operate Your Own Learjet And Have An Unlimited Expense Account, But If You Have A Reasonable Expectation For A Print-based Product, Whether It's A Newspaper Or A Magazine, You Can Certainly Exist.

Nonfiction Narratives Are Really Powerful And Valid In Themselves. But One Thing That You Don't Get Sometimes From The More Clinical Or Academic Books Or Nonfiction Books Is That You Don't Get To Hear The Person's Voice; You Don't Get Them As Individuals. You Get A Few Quotes And You Hear Them As Sort Of A Case Study: Numbers, Examples, Anecdotes, Maybe A Paragraph Here, And That's About It.