Viet Thanh Nguyen

We create beautiful things and we also undermine them by the institutions that we create.

And so I realized about that, about writing and about art, which were my things that I really cared about a lot, that the writing and the art matter.

Everything else around them do not.

Publishing, awards, recognitions, fancy dinners, interviews, these kinds of things.

I mean, they're fun, but they don't matter.

Oh, you're crushing me.

We're having a good time.

That's important.

We need it, right?

And it's a good time to go to a dinner party or a literary party or whatever, but it's not the art.

It's not the writing.

And so it took 17 years of working at the art to realize I didn't care about the illusions.

And that's a very beneficial experience to have.

And again, there's no way to teach anybody.

Yeah, because you look around, and I looked around after 17 years, and I realized, oh, the things that I thought I cared about, like, will I get published in The New Yorker?

Or will I get this fancy prize?

Or will I get this fancy residency?

And so on.

I realized those are accidental.

If I got those things, would they make me happier?