The only other important thing to be said about Fear & Loathing at this time is that it was fun to write, and that's rare - for me, at least, because I've always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it's a bit like fucking - which is fun only for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling. Nothing is fun when you have to do it - over and over, again and again - or else you'll be evicted, and that gets old. So it's a rare goddamn trip for a locked-in, rent-paying writer to get into a gig that, even in retrospect, was a kinghell, highlife fucking from start to finish... and then to actually get paid for writing this kind of manic gibberish seems genuinely weird; like getting paid for kicking Agnew in the balls. So maybe there's hope. Or maybe I'm going mad... In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upward mobile - and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: Not necessarily to Win, but mainly to keep from Losing Completely... The Swine are gearing down for a serious workout this time around... So much, then, for The Road - and for the last possibilities of running amok in Las Vegas... Well, at least, I'll know I was there, neck deep in the madness, before the deal went down, and I got so high and wild that I felt like a two-ton Manta ray jumping all the way across the Bay of Bengal.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Thompson reflects on the rare joy of writing this book amidst normally hateful work.
- In plain terms
- Writing this book was fun even though writing is usually work.
- What can you take from it?
- Passion work breaks the cycle of drudgery.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What makes work enjoyable?
- How often is your work fun?
Another view
It romanticizes the exception rather than the rule of professional writing.
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