Jason S. Canon

My writing life exists on a loop. “I should write more.” “I’ll relaunch my website to publish there.” “To build my audience, I’ll need to publish on a schedule, write pieces that can go viral, develop a monetization strategy, track conversion rates...” “Huh. Weird. I’ve stopped writing.”

Rudy and Viola live in a white steel barn. Both are 32. Their six kids—the boys with bowl cuts, the girls in bonnets—play between the clotheslines. The youngest, covered in dust, a boy no older than two, ambles in an umber dress.

Ambition is killing us. It promises happiness but never delivers. It keeps us bent toward hypothetical futures, distracted from our own time. It leaves us anxious and edgy and wanting. And yet it feels so very right.

I've too long ignored the wisdom in Aristotle. I thought the Nicomachean Ethics was antique. Teleology? Please. ”Incontinence”? Heh. The book is dry and disorganized and reads like the lecture notes they are.

In the playground of Fair Grove Elementary (Rural District 10) sat what we called the Bell Tower. It was hardly a tower, standing about as tall as I do now. Its Depression-era bell was long gone. It sat awkwardly among swing sets and monkey bars.

Suppose a stateless wanderer can choose citizenship in one of two unnamed lands. Only two facts are known: One is a healthy democracy. The other has a thriving free market. Which should the wanderer choose?