Shortly before his 90th birthday, when asked which moment of his life he’d return to were time travel possible, Ray Bradbury told his interviewer: “Every. Single. Moment. Every single moment of my life has been incredible. I’ve loved it, I’ve savored it, it’s been beautiful — because I’ve remained a boy.” Bradbury was a rare and necessary antidote to the tortured-genius myth — that toxic cultural narrative that requires great creators to suffer lest their work have no depth, no gravitas, no legacy. Bradbury left high school with plans of going to college, but no money. So he set out to educate himself by going to the library three days a week, a regimen he continued for 10 years, never romanticizing poverty or the so-called writer’s life. Instead, he celebrated the joy of writing itself. In 1951, living in Los Angeles with his wife two and two infant daughters, he got a bag of dimes and rented a typewriter in the U.C.L.A. basement for 10 cents a half-hour. He wrote “Fahrenheit 451” for $9.80. His secret? “You remain invested in your inner child by exploding every day. You don’t worry about the future, you don’t worry about the past — you just explode.” MARIA POPOVA
Posted on: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 16:53:59 +0000
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