The Shape of the Essay Field

Paul Graham argues that an essay's impact equals how much it changes readers' thinking multiplied by the importance of the topic, and that writers aiming at smart people about important things will mostly reach the young. He says the tradeoff is not consciously chosen but is a kind of gravitational field every essayist works in. He describes realizing this only while writing the essay, and says he will keep following curiosity rather than optimizing for a particular age of reader. He cites The Selfish Gene as an example of a book that changed his own thinking.