Schadenfreude Is So Nutritious.

Once The Working Classes Were In Chains, Now They're In Chain Restaurants.

Ideologists Of All Kinds Find A Strange Sort Of Comfort In The Madness Of The Crowd; It Confirms Them In Their Suspicion That History, Far From Being Made By The Great Mass Of Individuals - As Marx Averred - Is Rather Unmade By A Single Massive Individual, A Collective Other, Who Stands In Stark Contrast To You And He.

When Anyone Starts Out To Do Something Creative - Especially If It Seems A Little Unusual - They Seek Approval, Often From Those Least Inclined To Give It. But A Creative Life Cannot Be Sustained By Approval, Any More Than It Can Be Destroyed By Criticism - You Learn This As You Go On.

We've Clearly Entered A Period In Which The Analog Of Text Is No Longer Important Or Relevant. All Text Will Be Electronic. I Accept That Fact. My House Has Thousands Of Books In It, And I've Started To Look At Them Completely Differently. They Now Seem To Me To Be Like Antiquarian Objects. Their Use Value Has Become Negligible To Me Because I'm Perfectly Happy To Read On An E-reader.

Certainly, For Time Out Of Mind, An Obsessive Dwelling On Happier Former Days Has Been Synonymous With Getting Older, While It Was The Juvenescent Who Rushed With Open Arms To Embrace The Future.