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On Human Solitude
We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way.
The Weight of Simple Courage
Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.
On the Masks We Wear
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
The Unionized God
Workshop critique: "Deus ex machina! Lazy writing!" Fine. Revised. Made god's appearance earned. God appeared in chapter 19. Looked around. Pulled out paperwork. "I've unionized," he said. "Speaking fee is 3000. Miracle fee is 8000. Saving protagonist from poor planning is 15000 plus residuals." Protagonist died. Workshop approved.
The Judging Chair
Book signing day. Arrived early. Table: ready. Pens: uncapped. Books: stacked. Two hours later. Table: ready. Pens: still uncapped. Books: still stacked. No people came. Except the chair. The chair came. The chair stayed. The chair saw everything. I don't use that chair anymore. It knows too much.
The Soviet Engineer Who Wrote the Blueprint for Every Dystopia You've Ever Loved
Here's a fun party trick: name three famous dystopian novels. If you said 1984, Brave New World, and The Hunger Games, congratulations—you've just listed three books that owe their entire existence to a bald Russian engineer most people have never heard of. Yevgeny Zamyatin, born 142 years ago today, wrote 'We' in 1920, essentially inventing the modern dystopian genre before getting himself exiled for being too honest. George Orwell literally called 'We' the model for his own work. Aldous Huxley suspiciously claimed he'd never read it.