{"id":9111,"date":"2013-08-04T23:24:37","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T03:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.quiltr.com\/?p=9111"},"modified":"2013-08-04T23:42:19","modified_gmt":"2013-08-05T03:42:19","slug":"so-just-get-in-there-and-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/?p=9111","title":{"rendered":"So just get in there and do it…"},"content":{"rendered":"

But it\u2019s a mistake, he added, to think of writing programs in terms that are \u201ctoo narrowly careerist. . . . Even for those thousands of young people who don\u2019t get something out there, the process is still a noble one \u2014 the process of trying to say something, of working through craft issues and the worldview issues and the ego issues \u2014 all of this is character-building, and, God forbid, everything we do should have concrete career results. I\u2019ve seen time and time again the way that the process of trying to say something dignifies and improves a person.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

George Saunders in the NYTimes Magazine “George Saunders Has Written the Best Book You\u2019ll Read This Year<\/a>“. And here he is in his Syracuse University 2013 Commencement Address<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Because kindness, it turns out, is hard \u2013 it starts out all rainbows and puppy dogs, and expands to include\u2026well, everything.<\/p>\n

One thing in our favor: some of this \u201cbecoming kinder\u201d happens naturally, with age. It might be a simple matter of attrition: as we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish \u2013 how illogical, really. We come to love other people and are thereby counter-instructed in our own centrality. We get our butts kicked by real life, and people come to our defense, and help us, and we learn that we\u2019re not separate, and don\u2019t want to be. We see people near and dear to us dropping away, and are gradually convinced that maybe we too will drop away (someday, a long time from now). Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving. I think this is true. The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was \u201cmostly Love, now.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve seen time and time again the way that the process of trying to say something dignifies and improves a person. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5,13,51],"tags":[515,522,536],"class_list":["post-9111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-badass-ness","category-do-the-work","category-the-creative-process","tag-badass-ness","tag-do-the-work","tag-the-creative-process"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3FVAs-2mX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9111"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9115,"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9111\/revisions\/9115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quiltr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}