I was listening to talk radio this morning as I was trying to find a parking space and P.J. O’Rourke was on the air because he’s got a new book basically explaining Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations to folks who aren’t likely to read it. Certainly O’Rourke’s way with words will enliven any subject. I remember him explaining once why Hollywood could only exist in California… so that when the illusion that something actually happens there implodes, people could still sleep on the beach (or something to that effect).
He ended up talking about the 3 Things people in America needed to be successful:
1. Get as much education as you can stand
2. Stay married - divorce just makes lawyers rich (Wikipedia says he’s been married twice so I guess he’s at least had to pay the lawyers once!)
3. Keep going to work
The talk show host asked about P.J.’s writing career at that point and that’s where #3 kicked in. He said that he had flirted with writing but never got serious until he got really broke.
Then the “keep working” part kicked in for him…He didn’t say this but as a writer I knew what he meant (at least about the work if not the enormous paycheck!) keeping at it…honing his skills…mastering words…taking on new projects, focusing, focusing, focusing. And in this case, getting on an interview to sell his book.
Here’s an excerpt: P. J. O’Rourke on the Service Economy:
Later economists, such as, in the early nineteenth century, J. B. Say, felt that Smith undervalued the economic contributions of services. And he did. The eighteenth century had servants, not a service economy. It was hard for a man of that era to believe that the semi-inebriated footman and the blowzy scullery maid would evolve into, well, the stoned pizza delivery boy and the girl behind the checkout counter with an earring in her tongue.
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