There’s a phenomenon I’ve identified which I think of as ‘Jimi Hendrix Syndrome’: anyone who ever picked up a guitar thought, at least on some level, that they’re a master of the axe. Likewise, just about everyone who ever put pen to paper believed they had it in them to become the next Shakespeare and automatically had the right to recognition.

The best writers are the ones who believe in themselves but never indulge in self-praise. To do so demotivates one to write. Even Hemingway restricted himself to slandering James Jones, while maintaining an attitude to his own work that was enthusiastic but modest.

I think people just like the idea of not having to do the things we don’t want to do without any guilt. Trash collector robots, for example. The fun stuff, we’d rather leave for ourselves.