Tim Kreider: Resist consensual fictions
"Talk honestly about what people are actually like."
Author and cartoonist Tim Kreider (of
) explains a writer’s job:I think it’s a writer’s job—my job, anyway—to try to talk honestly about what people are actually like, and resist the consensual fictions we all tell each other (and ourselves) — everyone acting publicly as though they have their shit together and then going home to be heartbroken, addicted or depressed, binge-eating or -drinking or -watching TV just to try to shut their brains up. People are a mess. We do wrong things. We want what is bad for us.
(Source: A conversation with the essayist and cartoonist Tim Kreider from Question Everything with Peter Catapano)