Tired Of

Various things.

I have come over the years to be suspicious of and even hostile toward praise. I mean in general. When I was young, I got lots of it, academically, literarily. I liked it but wasn’t sure why I didn’t like it more. Over the years, as I have seen other people get it, I have clarified my feelings, which start somewhere around resistance and end somewhere around resignation. I’m not against people liking other people’s work. I’m all for it. But I also think that the motives can be so complex and can erode goodwill in ways that they never mean to or worse in ways they are intended to, that they can accompany a bid for taste-making authority that is never quite the issue, and that they can paradoxically play up the poverty of the overall culture. Maybe it’s just a curmudgeonly day.

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THE LEGACY MOVE

We’re all going to be forgotten, all the writers and the sculptors, all the businessmen and builders, the scientists who make discoveries about the universe and the philosophers who make discoveries about the species, the tech tycoons, the legendary beauties, the geniuses, the dolts. We’re all going to be forgotten, from the inventor of the nailable solar shingle to the lead singer of Anticipatory Cascade to the owner and operator of Max’s Top-Notch Delicatessen. We’re all going to be forgotten: the girl in the back seat and the boy in the war and the man in the arena and the woman with her face half in shadow, the half out of it pining for a better partner. We’re all going to be forgotten if we live a day or a hundred years, if we make all the money or never earn a cent, if we win acclaim or accept obscurity. We’re all going to be forgotten, except what’s his name. [©2026 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas]