Ambition can be dangerous

Ambition has led me to spend 20 years of my life in a clamorous, filthy city I cannot afford, and to devote far too much attention to the soul-shriveling business of self-promotion. Like a lot of artists in New York, I keep imagining that this will be my last year here. I daydream about abandoning all this: moving back to the country, reading a lot, writing something only when I feel like it. I aspire to be — someday, if I have the courage for it — less ambitious.

Tim Kreider