Nice, as always. We write similarly. I’m not a big “fact” guy, even though I allude to them all the time. A good example of this is my recent post on the heroin epidemic, Heroin and the Fragile Beast (http://www.obsessedwithconformity.com/3399/heroin-and-the-fragile-beast/). I just write too fast to think too hard about citing resources or facts. I’ve never wanted to be a journalist. Ok maybe for a while there in the 80s as the result of TV shows. But mostly back then I knew I just wanted to write. It took nearly 20 years but eventually I figured out a way to write and get people to pay me for it — advertising. And copywriting isn’t exactly an objective endeavor. Quite the opposite, actually. So when I shifted from paper journaling in the 2000s to digital blogging, the things I wrote were things in my head and heart. To hell with facts. That said, I often think that part of the reason I’m no James Altucher is because my work is so personal and opinionated. Views from a completely different perspective. Credible views from the ether contain facts.

I don’t see a lot of facts in your writing. And that works for me most of the time. Another thing that makes your writing work are the shiny nuggets that drive your points home. Lines like how many times children laugh v. adults. That one line was the biggest takeaway for me in this piece. It resonated. I wondered why I’d never heard it before, and immediately thought about tweeting/statusing it (without attribution). So I looked this little factoid up. And I found that it’s urban legend. Legend according to this site, I mean: http://www.laughteronlineuniversity.com/children-laughter-frequency/. Which isn’t even important in context to your story, just factually incorrect. The idea is that simplicity is divine. Kudos to you for realizing that. I had the same epiphany 3 years ago while visiting Belize http://www.obsessedwithconformity.com/1822/belize/). And the idea of freedom (specifically creative freedom) is one of the key themes in my novel, Minor King. Keep up the great work, James. I enjoy reading writers who I admire.