smart enough to wish i was more kind

“I talked on the phone yesterday to an author whose book I hope we’re going to feature as an Emily Books pick soon, someone whose autobiographical novel, written in the first person, is full of lucid, skillful, sometimes frankly horrifying descriptions of exploitative sex and bulimia. “Do you think you’re crazy? I’m crazy,” she told me. “I … try to keep the different aspects of myself in balance. I like that you’re crazy,” I told her. And then I said something that I didn’t realize I believed until I said it out loud. “Women who don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks of them are crazy. But men who don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks of them are … just men.” Obviously many men give a fuck what people think about them. But if they don’t, it doesn’t mean they’re insane. Whereas for a woman not to care – that’s actually pathological, self-destructive behavior, in the context of our culture. I love and valorize this kind of female craziness and the art it produces – I created a business to celebrate these women and their art. But I fear not giving a fuck, for myself. I wonder what it would be like to let go that much.”