"If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something."
--Kurt Vonnegut, from A Man Without a Country
While I'm waiting tables tonight with my new "I have a good attitude and am not bitter in the slightest that I'm waiting tables" mindset, I'm going to be thinking of ways to make my soul grow. I certainly write lousy poems on a regular basis. So I have that, at least. I have created something.
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