If you can get sexual attention and then (or therefore) succeed as a writer - or [fill in career blank] - that means you're a writer worthy of literary respect?

Ambition is something you turn into a plan to create an online personality, a brand, a network.

What I was being told in my 20s in the close-quartered, male-ego-infused work space, was that I had to stop reacting with my emotions to sexual desire towards me. The change, in other words, had to be made in me.

Girls are not just put on earth for men's amusement while they do the important things.

Despite my belief that somehow my work would get me where I wanted to be, there was still some kind of fathomless yearning. Yes, my career aspirations were always goading me. But partially, I think I tried to let those dreams replace or become the other yearning, to have that other form of value.

I occasionally feel contempt for that attitude [degree of sexual desire towards me] when I perceive it, but maybe that's not fair. By our culture we've been taught who is most valued and who is not.

Attention equals importance equals value equals ego. Or, more realistically, Attention equals success.