Something Instead of Nothing: An Essay from Eating the Dinosaur

By Chuck Klosterman

Originally collected in Eating the Dinosaur and now available both as a stand-alone essay and in the ebook collection Chuck Klosterman on Media and Culture, this essay is about interviews.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scribner
• Release date: Sep 14, 2010
• ISBN: 9781451625219

Chuck Klosterman

Chuck Klosterman is the bestselling author of ten nonfiction books (including The Nineties; Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs; and But What If We’re Wrong?), two novels (Downtown Owl and The Visible Man), and the short story collection Raised in Captivity. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Esquire, Spin, The Guardian, The Believer, and ESPN. Klosterman served as the Ethicist for The New York Times Magazine and was an original founder of the website Grantland with Bill Simmons. He was raised in rural North Dakota and now lives in Portland, Oregon.

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Something Instead of Nothing

An Essay from Eating the Dinosaur

Chuck Klosterman

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This essay was previously published in Eating the Dinosaur copyright © 2009 by Chuck Klosterman.

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First Scribner ebook edition September 2010

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ISBN 978-1-4516-2521-9

Something Instead of Nothing

1 For the first twelve years of my adult life, I sustained a professional existence by asking questions to strangers and writing about what they said.

Why did you do it? I would ask these strangers. It did not matter what it was. What were you thinking while you did that? Did it satisfy you? What does it mean to be satisfied? Do you consider yourself to be famous? How does it feel to be famous? How did this experience change you? What elements didn’t change? What will never change? What drives you? Are you lying to me right now? Why should I care about what you are saying? Is this all a construction? Are you constructed? Who constructed you? What was their purpose? Does God exist? Why or why not? Thank you very much. It was great meeting you in the lobby of this unnecessarily expensive hotel.

This has been a tremendous way to earn a living. Who wouldn’t enjoy getting paid for being curious? Journalism allows almost anyone to direct questions they would never ask of their own friends at