I've Found That My First Drafts Are

Both [donald] Trump And Bernie [sanders] Got To This Idea Of The Vanishing Middle Class Sooner And With More Passion Than More Mainstream Politicians, And Benefited From It. The Difference, Of Course, Is That Bernie Understood This In A More Compassionate Framework, And Talked About It In Conjunction With A Revitalization Of Another Part Of The American Project, Which Is The Notion That We Are All Created Equal, And That Our Laws And Culture And Action Ought To Reflect That.

Back In 1992, I Had My First Story Accepted By 'the New Yorker.'

Now I Began To Understand Art As A Kind Of Black Box The Reader Enters. He Enters In One State Of Mind And Exits In Another. The Writer Gets No Points Just Because What's Inside The Box Bears Some Linear Resemblance To "real Life" -- He Can Put Whatever He Wants In There. What's Important Is That Something Undeniable And Nontrivial Happens To The Reader Between Entry And Exit.

In A Story, For Example, You'll Start Off With A Character Who Is A Little Bit Of A Cartoon. That's Not Satisfying And You Start Revising. And As You Revise You Always Are Making It Better By Being Specific And By Observing More Closely, Which Actually Is Really The Same As Saying You Love Your Characters. The Close Observation Equals Love Of Them.

Now, We Don't Really Believe These Things - Intellectually We Know Better - But We Believe Them Viscerally, And Live By Them, And They Cause Us To Prioritize Our Own Needs Over The Needs Of Others, Even Though What We Really Want, In Our Hearts, Is To Be Less Selfish, More Aware Of What's Actually Happening In The Present Moment, More Open, And More Loving.