In the summer of 1995, I wrote Dennis Prager a letter (15 months earlier, I moved to Los Angeles to work for him, the job fell through) asking for his permission to develop his ideas on how to be a good person into a book.
His assistant wrote back asking me to hold off.
Instead of writing a book on goodness, I decided instead to write a history of porn.
It was only logical.
I sometimes ask myself how would my life have been different if I had made a different choice for my first book.
Dennis Prager devoted a recent radio show to the question of why do people do good. "Even if you are not consumed with how can you be a good person, you are consumed with how can everyone in your life be a good person so you get treated better."
"Everybody cares that there be more good people. They may not be one of them…
"If I wrote a book, ‘Ten Ways To Be A Good Person’, do you think it would sell well? And it was brilliant, innovative, and clear. As opposed to ‘Ten Ways To Be Rich’ or ‘Ten Ways To Be Happy.’"
Dennis, I really really wanted to help you write such a book. You didn’t give me the chance.
It’s too bad.
I don’t think you have to be a particularly good person to assist with writing a book on how to be good. I’m not a particularly good person but I’m pretty sensitive to issues of goodness even when I don’t live up to my own ideals.
