“Check it out, I’ve been thinking about this thing that you should totally write an article about!”

Cool, great idea!

And while we’re swapping ideas, here’s a random topic I’ve been casually musing about sometimes when I drink.

Why don’t you also magically and instantly become genuinely interested in this exact same topic!

Then, figure out what editor at a major news organization would like to pay you, in partiular, to write something on that topic at this particular moment in time!

In the unlikely event you do find that person—and don’t quit until you do, because this topic is important—you can then spend two or three weeks tracking down and interviewing all the experts in that area, and then another week agonizing desperately about how to organize that whole miniature universe of information into a coherent and punchy and SEO-grabby 750 words—and then work with the editors of that publication to get that motherfucker into print!

Now I ought to warn you, by then I’ll wonder what why the fuck you’re sending me the link to this story, because by then there’s not a Chinaman’s chance I’ll remember ever being interested in the topic in the first place. By then, I’ll be into Baháʼí, which you should totally write an article about, right after you research and publish a super timely and germane piece about the dark origins and cruel cultural significance of the term, Chinaman’s chance. (Maybe in Smithsonian magazine?)

Oh, you don’t want to do it? Because you’re not a writer?

Well I don’t want to write about your random topic, because I’m not an intellectual jellyfish, just floating through life waiting for crustacean zooplankton to float up into my body hole, unless a water-gaggle of planktonic eggs comes along first.

Because I’m a writer.