About Parades and Sympathy

Post 222:

            I wish I could know what everybody wants. Seriously, it would make things so much easier. I’d be able to write exactly what touches the whole world in its collective sweet spot. The parades, the adulations—I’d bask in the glow of my sympathy/empathy halo. I’ll take both, please.

            That’s what you really need. You need to be able to feel what others are feeling; not just that, you need to feel what others are feeling even when you don’t. Then you’re the man/woman. Then you can do anything. If you can give the people what they want, there’s no stopping that train. It’s just a matter of knowing.

            OR maybe it’s better to know what you want. Maybe this is the better way to go about the game. Because self-knowledge is pretty hot; people line up in droves to hear people that think they know what they’re talking about. Even if what you want sucks, if you want it bad enough, chances are decent that a lot of people will follow their feet into the fold.

            I guess when you cover all these things, that’s when you can really dominate. If I’m writing something that I value (my desire) but that I know others will value (what they want) as well, I’ve hit the big time.

            But what if these two things don’t line up?

            Ding Ding Ding!

            We’ve got ourselves a good old-fashioned ethical question here. I like to think there’s three ways to go. You can either want to be remembered for your success, your character, or maybe, it doesn’t matter.

            If you’ve got no ethics then you have no ethical dilemma. If you have no desires then you’re almost dead anyway. The rest of us, I guess, will just have to slug it out.

            I’m happy to do so. Well…I want to, anyway. Cheers knuckleheads. See you after.