Rick Perlstein has the Gift of Knowing When he is Well Off

Perlstein on (his) writing life:

The way I look at it, the work I’m blessed to be able to do affords me a cascade of privileges—attention, respect and a middle-class income; all that for safe, dry, indoor work; the grace of spending my days honoring the wellsprings of creativity churning inside me; near-constant affectionate avowals from strangers who trust that the things I tap out on my laptop have afforded them some measure of meaning, pleasure or understanding; that the small quantum of stupid stuff that comes my way never much penetrates. 

 Link. I can relate.  I have never published anything nearly so impressive as Perlstein's histories of modern Republicanism, butI'm 77 years old and the sovereign still sends me checks in exchange for my yelling of half-truths at post-adolescents,.  Pretty cool, say I.