George Saunders

your ability to change what's good about you or bad about you, all of those things kind of came to you when you were, when, we don't know, before birth for sure, you know.

So she's not a big fan of this idea of free will.

She thinks basically because we're so predisposed to certain things, and even our ability to adjust to predisposition is predisposed, the only position is to be very, very merciful towards human beings, even bad ones.

That's her position.

Is it your position?

Well, sometimes.

I had this, speaking of the Catholic days, the first intimation I had of this, and even then I knew it was a weird and maybe hard to accept idea.

But in first grade, I was a really good reader just because I just could read almost instantly.

And the nuns loved it, and I loved that, and every day was a joy.

Maybe you had a similar thing.

You know, you just show up to be praised, basically.

You know, do this.

I would be finished first.

Right.

Yeah, it's the best.

So one day, you know, after three or four days of this celebration, I look over and a good friend of mine, he's not a good reader.

He might have been dyslexic.

I'm not sure.

He was really struggling.

You know, very articulate, intelligent kid, but he just couldn't read.