George Saunders

And for me at that age, it was so hard to chicken out, which I definitely did.

But that wise voice was like, no, okay, you can go ahead and go.

It won't help.

Oh, it was you.

It was me in my head.

Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying.

I was sitting in that room alone, obsessing, and I could feel this source of some kind of wisdom saying, okay.

And what really was the real mantra was be honest for once.

Let's hone in on what you really want, which is you want to be a good writer.

And so there was some kind of no-nonsense voice that I had access to on those two occasions, even though my actual 28, 25-year-old self was just a mess, you know, kind of confused.

Yeah.

And where did you – Afghanistan.

What did you do?

Yes, and I always wanted to be someone who had done it and got slightly injured but not too bad.

But on the other hand, you know, you're making a beautiful case because you're here where you are partly because you took that path.

And people do have to go do that, you know.

The one thing is I at that point was not any kind of journalist.

I just was a person going in there.

So it was – with me, there was no way that that was going to turn into a piece of journalism or reportage.

It just was me.