Writing too eagerly about loved ideas can carry real professional and social costs

Evidence

The story of Colin Wilson is a cautionary one. If you subtract the youthful vanity and the flawed social skills, you are left with the potential plight of anyone whose passion for ideas leads them to write in too great a rush of excitement about what they love. With his chutzpah, his Kierkegaardian awkwardness, and his ‘perfervid individualism’, Colin Wilson perhaps captures the spirit of late-1950s existentialist rebellion better than anyone. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 910

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the existentialist trope of the awkward, passionate individual as exemplified by Kierkegaard, echoing figures throughout the movement. — connects to: High ambition creates creative block while low standards enable writing. — Janet Burroway; Elizabeth Stuckey-French; Ned Stuckey-French, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edition: A Guide…, 80; Writers often feel vulnerable when sharing their journals. — Thomas Mallon, A Book of Ones Own People and Their…, 435; Curating one’s own collected essays feels like engraving one’s intellectual tombstone. (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Curating one’s own collected essays feels like engraving one’s intellectual tombstone. #expands (0.78)
• High ambition creates creative block while low standards enable writing. #qualifies (0.75) — Janet Burroway; Elizabeth Stuckey-French; Ned Stuckey-French, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edition, 80
• Writers often feel vulnerable when sharing their journals. #complicates (0.72) — Thomas Mallon, A Book of Ones Own People and Their…, 435