/lit/ - Literature

>>12559537
This is dangerous megalomania and you ought not to give in to it. Great men do not want to become great, they are. You will be better off psychologically if you dissipate your mediocre life in broad hedonism like the rest of us, it's the only road to something approximating happiness we who cannot produce great works may travel.

I drank at the poisonous fount of solitary megalomania and I am now mentally crippled for life. Please, please do not follow me into this suffocating bog. Go outside and talk to people you find sexually attractive or interesting in any way.

>>12504936
Here you go, OP.

>>12011886
reading pessimists often cheers me up in a way desu, but that's probably because i've already bought into the basic premises and the rest is just the joy of my linguistic superiors framing those type of thoughts in a way that i can't or at least haven't.

>>11208239
Sometimes the truth hurts, buckaroo.

>>10096660
At least Cioran has a sense of humor.

>>9616575
>Does making the protagonist ""immortal"" remove reader suspense?

Immortality without omnipotence is very scary. Imagine your immortal hero gets weighted down and sunk into the Mariana Trench for a few centuries and goes insane.

The lack of the escape that death offers is terrifying.

>>9464730
Cioran strategically used pessimism as a coping mechanism in service of life.

EMC A few years ago, there was a friend of mine who told me that he'd
met a twenty-five-year-old engineer who wanted to meet me. Finally, I
said all right, we'll go stroll around the Luxembourg Gardens nearby. It
was a summer evening. We spoke about one thing and another, literature
and such, and finally he said to me, "Do you know why I wanted to meet
you? It's because I read your books, and I saw that you're interested in
suicide. I'd like to tell you about my case." And so he explained to me that
he had a good job, he earned a lot. He said, "In the last two or three
years, I've begun to be obsessed with suicide. I'm in the prime of life, and
this idea has taken hold of me. I haven't been able to get rid of it." We
talked for three hours about suicide, circling the Luxembourg Gardens. I
explained to him how I was-I am still-obsessed by it, I consider suicide
as the only solution, but, I told him, my theory is this: that suicide is the
only idea that allows man to live. Suicide gives me the idea that I can
leave this world when I want to, and that makes life bearable. Instead of
destroying it. So for three hours we discussed every aspect of this problem,
and then I suggested that we not see each other again, because there
wouldn't be any point.
JW In an encounter like that, have you had the feeling of saving him a little?
EMC Yes, a little. That's happened to me several times, with young
women particularly. I've always prevented them from committing suicide.
I've always tried to tell them that, since you can kill yourself anytime, you
should put it off. But you should not abandon this idea.
JW But you do feel a certain responsibility to such people.
EMC Yes, I can't avoid it. Because my theory of suicide is that one
shouldn't kill oneself, one should make use of this idea in order to put up
with life. So, it's something else, but they've attacked me, saying this
fellow makes the argument for suicide and doesn't do it himself. But I
haven't made such an argument. I say that we have only this recourse in
life, that the only consolation is that we can quit this life when we want
to. So, it's a positive idea. Christianity is guilty of leading a campaign
against this idea. One should say to people, "If you find life unbearable,
tell yourself, 'Well, I can give it up when I want to."' One should live by
way of this idea of suicide. It's in Syllogismes where I wrote that sentence:
"Without the idea of suicide, I would have killed myself from the start."

It's a good interview, the rest is worthwhile as well:

http://public.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/public/article/download/30276/27810

>>9171972
hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

>tfw 23 days sober

>>8782970
A professional one.