[alexismadrigal]

I mean: just to be clear, as the giver of the quote, the context for it is that I was summarizing the feeing of other people who saw the book. I was a super strong supporter of the idea that this was too well-done to be a marketing stunt.

That said, it was just incredibly labor intensive for something with no commercial or even reputational return.

[famousactress]

> it was just incredibly labor intensive for something with no commercial or even reputational return.

Yah, but I still declare that a pretty insane and incredibly myopic outlook on making something beautiful. You and I both have two year olds... How much commercial or reputational return are you counting on for yours?

Mine seems pretty smart, and plausibly in the height percentile to be headed to WNBA... but not really counting on returns, and she's the most labor intensive experience in my life so far :)

[lvs]

It's possible -- and I know this is a stretch -- but it's possible that good people can occasionally do something good for all of us, something that's good for society and feeds back, at best, only indirectly to the self. Maybe if it's just a statement, like this one, that forces some iota of reflection, that will be enough for the author.