Show Them How To Use That Energy

Joan Didion was bored. She was four or five. She was bothering her mother. She was asking for something to do.Her mother could have sent her away. Told her to stop. Told her to figure it out for herself. Instead, she went over to a drawer and pulled out a notebook. Here, she said, if you’re bored “then write something. Then you can read it.” The little girl was taken aback. “I had just learned to read,” she later explained, “so this was a thrilling kind of moment. The idea that I could write ...