You will never be pretty enough, skinny enough, smart enough, successful enough, or famous enough for the media

Media is Munchausen by proxy.

What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua...that__ the only name I can think of for it...like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, this America, the one that we are now in, an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, movies and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep. The old channels cannot contain it and in its search for new ones there seems to be growing havoc and destruction along its banks. In this Chautauqua I would like not to cut any new channels of consciousness but simply dig deeper into old ones that have become silted in with the debris of thoughts grown stale and platitudes too often repeated.

I was asked, __hen is the next book release, it__ been over a year since the last book release, have you given up writing?_ Again a senseless question by a Sri Lankan journalist. Does it mean that being a writer means you have to release a book every month? Do they count a writer__ success by the quantity of books or the quality of the work? I am concerned about the quality of work, not the quantity of books that I release. One can publish hundreds of books within a couple of years today as technology is advance and cheap, but keeping the quality of the work is something you cannot depend of technology and money. It is the quality of thinking of the writer which should reflect through their work. I have been in the field for almost 2 and a half years, learnt a lot through trial and error, learn through my mistakes. I am no longer bothered about the number of books I write, how much I spend or how much I earn, my only focus is to do something quality which will last long, even after I am gone, something that will touch the soul of the readers. Will these journalists understand a soul of an artist? In this big dirty game of __edia mafia_, __rtists_ are only marketing ideas.

Charity is salt in the wound. It is painful. The state gives charity with the bitter hatred of a victim to his blackmailer. The receiver of free money is subjected to harassment, insult, and profound humiliation. Newspapers are enlisted to heap scorn on the arrogant bastards who choose to beg instead of starve or let their children starve. It is made clear that the poor seek charity as a great and sordid chicanery in which they delight. And there are some who do. As there are people who take delight in sticking hot needles deep into their abdomens, swallow pieces of broken bottles. A special taste. Speaking for humanity in general, the poor accept charity with a shame and loss of self-respect that is truly pitiful.

Poverty is a great educator. Having no boundaries and refusing to be ignored, it mostly teaches hopelessness. But not always. Politics is also a great educator. Mostly it teaches, I am afraid, cynicism. But not always. Television is a great educator as well. Mostly it teaches consumerism. But not always. It is the "not always" that keeps the romantic spirit alive in those who write about schooling. The faith is that despite some of the more debilitating teachings of culture itself, something can be done in school that will alter the lenses through which one sees the world; which is to say, that nontrivial schooling can provide a point of view from which what IS can be seen clearly, what WAS as a living present, and what WILL BE as filled with possibility