The Atlantic - Latest Comments in I Should Not Talk So Much About Myself...

Re: I Should Not Talk So Much About Myself...

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:21:29 -0000

/blush

Thanks!

Re: I Should Not Talk So Much About Myself...

Michael E. Sullivan — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:05:19 -0000

What's so amazing is that I am one of you newer commenters in that I only registered a couple weeks ago, and only began to visit your site every day as part of my blog-reading around the same time, but I'd seen all three of the posts you linked to as foundational.

There is, of course, a reason I've started reading you every day, and it has a lot to do with what I've seen when I've followed links here from other bloggers. The day I realized that I always wanted to follow any link to your blog was the day you got a dedicated tab on my browser.

I couldn't have been prepared for what I found. What you've written in the past 2 weeks here, particularly the threads on reconstruction and the civil war and what it means to us today, have been some of the most provocative and intelligent words I've read anywhere. Someone said you are blogging at a particularly high level. Not just blogging, writing, and thinking. It's a privilege to be a part of your early audience.

Re: I Should Not Talk So Much About Myself...

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:02:43 -0000

Full, and more accurate, quote:

"A man is worked upon by what he works on. He may carve out his circumstances, but his circumstances will carve him out as well."

Re: I Should Not Talk So Much About Myself...

Jennifer D. — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:56:28 -0000

This helps someone like me who only started coming here a few months ago. Man, it takes some guts to share your personal life, thoughts, ideas like you do. Love the family picture! Had no idea Big Love was such a theme.

Re: I Should Not Talk So Much About Myself...

DaveinHackensack — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:20:20 -0000

"A man is worked on by what he works on."

That's a great aphorism. I'd never heard that one before.

Re: I Should Not Talk So Much About Myself...

CitizenE — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:14:49 -0000

Your fandom of the Cowboys--an enigma wrapped inside of an enigma. Can't remember if you said you lived in Philly as a kid, but DC and NY as a grown man.

Re: I Should Not Talk So Much About Myself...

sv — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:51:10 -0000

heh... 2/3 of those 'about me' posts you link to here were springboarded off of "Big Love"

Re: I Should Not Talk So Much About Myself...

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:16:30 -0000

Your writing about yourself anyway. That's what people don't get. Even your explanation as to why you don't do it, says something about who you are.

Re: I Should Not Talk So Much About Myself...

Guest — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:11:08 -0000

Two unrelated thoughts:

(1) Every once in a while, I get the "Who am I and what the hell am I doing?" vibe which leads me to me that I whatever I would write about myself would be strange, unproductive, and self-serving.

(2) People who love injecting anecdotes into policy-related threads on the assumption that they will be instructive, germane, or interesting are wrong on all three counts about 99.2% of the time, and that figure is from the Internet Anecdote Analysis Bureau (IAAB).