August 12, 2008
Being crotchety
Researching a post about email on the Peek Speaks blog, one of my colleagues pointed out these great lines at Neal Stephenson's old homepage:
Umberto Eco: "I don't even have an e-mail address. I have reached an age where my main purpose is not to receive messages."
Donald Knuth: "Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration. "
Then Stephenson himself: All of my time and attention are spoken for--several times over. Please do not ask for them.
Some years ago, I wrote a document that tried to explain why I am not very diligent about answering my mail, and why I only accept speaking engagements on rare and special occasions. The document is entitled Why I am a bad correspondent and you are welcome to read it.
More recently I found an article in the Atlantic Monthly by Jonathan Rauch that describes my personality with uncanny accuracy. It explains why, whenever I find myself in a room full of people, or discover a lot of e-mail from strangers in my inbox, my first thought is: "where did all these people come from and how do I make them go away?" This---i.e. the discovery that I am a classic introvert---does not render "Bad Correspondent" invalid, but it does fill out the picture a little. In particular, extroverts ought to read this article!
The bottom line is as follows: I simply cannot respond to all incoming stimuli unless I retire from writing novels. And I don't wish to retire at this time.
Posted by amol at August 12, 2008 10:08 AM