My intention to lecture is as vague as my intention is to go on the stage. I will never consider an offer to lecture, not because I despise the vocation, but because I have no desire to appear on the public rostrum.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.
People don't listen when you lecture. No one wants to be talked down to or scolded.
This is unusual for me. I have given readings and not lectures. I have told people who ask for lectures that I have no lecture to give. And that is true.
I give lectures for money, but all the money goes to charity. So, I make no money from it.
Then there are the people who know me from the lectures. What I am really trying to do, what I need to accomplish at this time, is to fill in the gaps.
Even when I lecture per se, I am a joke comedian, I can do the voices.
It's sort of good to see your vocation as a daily task and have fairly modest expectations for financial or reward in other coin - glory, love, whatever.
I love my lecture tours. I get up onstage. I have my stack of books and a glass of water and a microphone. No podium, no distance between me and the audience, and I just talk to people and get all excited and tell a lot of jokes, and sing some songs, and read from my work and remind people how powerful they are and how beautiful they are.
When I lecture, under almost all circumstances, I write a new lecture for the occasion. It helps me think. It helps me make demands of myself that I would not otherwise make.
A lecture is an occasion when you numb one end to benefit the other.