So rude! The columnist is surprised...

If you write for a national newspaper, you should expect a response.

Previously: The origami castle
Lots of 'clever' columnists cannot even survive a light rainstorm, let alone a hurricane of piss...

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In the old¹ days, columnists could ignore the response to their columns or put replies that they felt like mocking into the letters page. Readers who wanted to shout back at a class of megaphone owners were often dismissed as “the green ink brigade”. Even now, readers, viewers, and listeners are often called “civilians” by people ‘in’ the industry. Columnists boast about not reading the comments and stick to hearing suck-up praise from colleagues, peers, and ‘elite’ readers on social media. The professional columnist is no more interested in a conversation than the drunk ranting to you from the end of the bar.

Regular readers of this newsletter will know that I’ve had a particular animus for the professional output of Times blünderkind (subs to check?!) James Marriott. I even considered never mentioning him again at one point because it felt cruel and, on one level, he’s not nearly as bad as his colleagues Rod ‘confessed danger to children’ Liddle and Giles ‘may his car never go unstolen’ Coren. But… he simply keeps publishing columns that allow me to make points about the problem with columnists in general and with his schtick in particular.

His latest column (paywall free link) is headlined — yes, yes, I know he doesn’t write the subdeck or headline — …

Don’t follow your dreams, they’ll serve you ill

Ambition can be a punishing burden as even a star like Andy Murray is doomed to discover

… and it instantly raised my hackles. A section in the middle of the piece got me into a state of total irritation:

Malcolm Gladwell’s famous 10,000-hour rule is a staple of inspirational LinkedIn posts (it describes the amount of practice required to achieve “mastery” of a given discipline). But frankly, how many people need to be that good at anything? An elite athlete or a pop star might benefit from 10,000 hours of practice but probably not most accountants or management consultants or plumbers. For all but a tiny proportion of people, extreme hard work will prove life-limiting and distracting rather than rewarding.

The most likely result is an atrophied private life and a professional tunnel vision that blinds you to the useful but not revolutionary career opportunities you might stumble on by chance. There are plenty of people toiling away into their thirties or forties, waiting for a big break as a screenwriter or a musician. The conventional advice is “never give up” or “fail better”. But failure is commonly a helpful signal that it’s time to try something else. What else is out there? What opportunities are you missing while gazing fixedly at your dreams?

For what it’s worth, this has always been my approach: avoid grand ambitions and take the best of what crops up along the way. I never set out to be a journalist. I followed my nose, listened to what people thought I was good at and took advantage of whatever chances cropped up. It’s served me well enough. I’m happy where I am.

Of course, you’re happy where you are, James; you got a national newspaper column before you turned 30, having been deputy books editor of The Times, and before that working in rare books. Your experience is not the general experience of a member of your generation. It sticks in the craw to hear a man who has had such an easy ride tell others to stop dreaming so hard.

When Marriott received some harsh criticism on Twitter, his response was to yelp, “so rude!” He’s been happy enough to write hatchet jobs of books and take the plaudits for doing so. Life’s hard in the NFL and if you step onto the pitch, you can’t pretend to be surprised when you get a hard tackle.

Last week, I sat in an inner-city London classroom and talked to media studies students. I told them to make their own stuff and believe in their own ability to find stories and tell them. Fuck the James Marriott view of the world; chase your dreams. You may not catch them but at least you will have tried.

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1. Definitions of ‘old’ may vary.