Advice from Kurt Vonnegut
Like many people, I enjoy singing. Also like many people, I am very bad at singing. Several of my exes have politely, and then less politely, asked me to stop doing it, even while we were at home, folding yoga pants.
There's this idea that we should only do things we’re good at. The rest of it, all the hundreds of thousands of things we’re not at all competent in, should be done either under cover of darkness, shamefully, or never at all.
But those who never sing off-key, or deprive themselves of doing the Elaine dance, or stop themselves from writing silly poetry about hungry vaginas are missing out on one of the most fundamentally human experiences we have at our disposal.
Joy.
I was reminded of the importance of such for-the-joy-of-it endeavors when Gabe Hudson tweeted a letter from Kurt Vonnegut. A high school English teacher asked her students to write to a famous author and get their advice.
No one else responded, except Kurt Vonnegut, which, I mean, !!!
His advice was this:
Dear X…