... there is ... a big aspect of play in writing novels, and making the story more and more elaborate is just more and more fun.
Gish JenIt's human to hear stories and to know how people live and to imagine how that is for them. It's very interdependent!
Gish JenIt's a matter of whether you see the self as fundamentally in relationship to other selves or not - whether you see the boundary between self and the world as relatively permeable, which makes you "interdependent" (collectivist) in outlook, or relatively impermeable, which makes you "independent" (individualistic).
Gish JenA white person was by definition somebody. Other people needed, across their hearts, one steel rib.
Gish Jen