A lovely tribute to spin

Was reading an article on chronic fatigue syndrome today, and stumbled across this:

“You can change people’s attributions of the seriousness of the illness if you have a more medical-sounding name,” said Dr. Leonard Jason, a professor of community psychology at in Chicago.

Thank you, Dr. Jason, for that lovely lesson on spin-doctoring. Someone put him on a political campaign...

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This started my gerbil running on her wheel today, about being a copywriter (a hearty shout-out to Scott out in Vegas, who is way better than I hope to be...). What has always struck me as irritating about being good at writing (yeah, a $160K education and ah kin rite reel gud fer shur) is that it doesn't pay. And i'm not just talking about the benjamins, either, folks. I've never been seriously hopeful about being a millionaire... my expectations for a comfy life run at about a $100K-a-year combined family income. What I mean by it-don't-pay is that, more and more, due to this information smog (thanks, David Shenk),

I find myself not writing because I don't think anyone will read me.

Is anyone else experiencing this problem? I've got a serious case of uselessness surrounding my writing-self. The most joy I get out of writing these days is writing emails (and the occasional letter) to Able Ponder.

The flip-side of this is that I'm reading more than ever - various blog posts, slate.com. I am voracious for more AblePonder posts, and can't wait to click the bolded headers in my google-reader pane. So if I'm reading like a hound, from whence comes this faithlessness in my own readability? Is it the fact that I tried (and still try, at turns) to professionalize what was initially a hobby? If doing what you love is "the secret," am I doomed to sequentially kill all that I love, and be a hopelessly miserable professional?

I hope not. I hope that my work with Julian and BHQG among others will help keep me fresh, help keep me excited about what I do. After all, writing that House and Hammock article for Julian was exhilarating and satisfying. Designing the BHQG site delights me. I hope that this isn't just because I'm not doing it 8 hours a day. I hope that I can make this into an 8-hours-a-day gig that really does delight me and doesn't dull me into retirement.