be Malcolm Gladwell

I’ve decided that I don’t want to look like Side-Show Bob^H^H^H^H^H^HMalcolm Gladwell, but I do want a look that says something like what his says: that interesting magical curious wonderful stuff is about to happen.

I’m finding it difficult to make time to be Malcolm Gladwell.

Right now, I won’t have any academic commitments until Fall (roughly eight months), so I’ve got some time to write. I’ve got three wonderful book ideas, two of which might make money. I’m a bit money-crunched, though, so I don’t feel safe diving full-time into a book.

Two ideas:

• Get a job at a bookstore  Advantage: That would leave my mind free to work on a book, as well as structuring my time and giving me up-close knowledge of the current book market. Disadvantage: Not much money, and I really need to save up, not just get by.

• Get a programming job (software engineering). Advantage: Good money, enough to save up. The market is hot right now, my friends tell me. Disadvantage: Not much mental bandwidth left over for writing (years of experience tells me this is so).

So, perhaps I could get a programming job and write articles instead of books. Articles don’t pay any real money, but they pave the way toward books (which don’t pay any real money, either, unless you hit the jackpot) and they’ll satisfy this urge.

“Oh, you can’t be Malcolm Gladwell! There already is a Malcolm Gladwell. You have to be the unique and wonderful person who is you, and not try to be someone else. By imitating another person, you will only blot out your own originality.”

To that, I say, “Naaah.”

I am inspired by a couple lines in a Cat Stevens song from the movie Harold and Maude:

If you want to be me, be me.
If you want to be you, be you.
‘Cause there’s a million things to do.

So I am going to be Malcolm Gladwell for a while and see how I like it.