/lit/ - Literature

>>/lit/?task=search&search_text=midwit
very very very very high quality writing on the subject

literally the bible

>>16511998
Hack of a flickmaker

>>16512057
that's why i used his pic

he had a couple of good ones though, like pic related. throw enough scheiße at the wall and something will stick...... was that God's plan for Man?

truly good acts are not mediocre, and midwits and "great minds" are equal in the face of them. trying to be the best man you can be will easily occupy you for a lifetime.

>>16511998
/lit/ will seethe, but i personally believe that there are grades to how capable artists are of transcending mediocrity.
composers are most able to realize the divine inspiration of their visions, since their medium is pure sound. and yet much of music is simply pleasant, or worse, dull and/or brash.

painters and sculptors are next since their work involves pure material. but much of painting and sculpture is crude forms, unwieldy and imperfect representation.

writers have it somewhat in-between. they are capable of transferring the inner thoughts and feelings of their souls into language, yet so much of great literature is filler or hackery. if you read the Bible or Borges or Joyce, the passages of divine beauty are submerged within hundreds of pages of "meh". i challenge you to a find a writer whose every word is impactful.

filmmakers have it the hardest since their medium is so complex and dependent on humanity in its execution. that's why even the greatest filmmakers have maybe 2 or 3 great films. and within these, there are only a few scenes or shots that stand out as truly magnificent.

but i guess as artists we still have to try and keep trying, despite the fragility and flawed nature of the work and our human potential.

bump

>>16511998
This is circular logic.

If you think humans are mediocre, then it means they failed to pass a certain standard. But where does such a standard come from, if not from the human minds themselves? Even if you are religious, do you believe God placed that standard in our minds himself?

Assuming you're a Christian there is no flaw in humans other than their abuse of the freedom given to them. They weren't made to be perfect they were made to live in ways inferred through the Parables of Jesus

>>16514357
You think mediocrity is not real? You think Harry Potter and Ulysses are on the same literary level? Would you prefer to be a great general or rot away in a office job?

>>16514397
Prove objectively that Ulysses is on a different literary level than Harry Potter and that a general is less mediocre than an office worker without referencing humans.

>>16511998
If there was no mediocrity, there'd be no greatness.

You think God intended for most people to be NPCs?

Like just as a test for the 5% that are real people?

>>16511998
You fool, you think creative work the be all and end all of human existence? You've hardly lived if you believe most humans to be uninspiring, mediocre things, that or you're too proud of your own meagre accomplishments. The beauty of humans is most apparent not in reading their writing or viewing their art, but in having sincere conversation with them, having an honest appreciation for your fellow man's beauty in mind, body, and spirit. None are mediocre my dear anon, you simply give them ill opportunity to know you and for you to know them

>>16514442
Mediocrity is the suppression of potential, it's not about which job you hold, general or office, but how great you are it, when you do something that you don't like that's detrimental to one's spirit because he is not realizing is potential, this comes from the way society is organised.

>>16511998
Mediocrity is the natural state of a human, which is necessarily for maintaining a cooperative society, if people were too independent then the world would be a more tribal place war like place, Napoleon and a beggar are two sides of the same extreme.

What is it with 4chan and you people being Christian?

>>16514397
What I mean is that to judge the human race as a whole makes is a false problem if our frame of reference is entirely based on human opinions

Replace mediocrity with evil. If we say "humans are evil, my faith in humanity is shattered" it's easier to see the circular logic. For humans as a whole to be evil is to say they've failed to meet a human-derived threshold... therefore implying that humans paradoxically have an innate goodness to have recognized and implemented this threshold in the first place.

>>16514579
It's fucking hilarious, isn't it? Why any Christian would come to this website is beyond me.

>>16514442
Holy crap this is retarded.

>>16514675
Because they LARP as Christians as a cope for their own shame with regards to their lifestyle and personality. It's not a coincidence that many 2020 fascists like anime, to give another example

>>16511998
Wont everything average out to mediocrety by defninition?

But would still say interesting take.

>>16514675
>t. baby’s first month out of /b/

>>16514794
IDK id simply say thats kinda the prevailing interest of the age. By the sake of anime being popular there will be demographic x that enjoys it (its not like there are not cringe gommunist weaboos too). Same with 4chan being "popular" (everything relative of course) there will be Christians interested in it as well.

>>16511998
>Why isn't the average human above average?
Is this even a question? If humans were better, we'd stop being mediocre humans and we'd be mediocre superhumans instead.

Fassbinder is fucking BASED

>>16514519
Based and humanismpilled

>>16511998
if it was god creating the universe, hed have every quality to choose from. qualities that are infinitely better than each other. thus he wouldnt arrive at any qualities for reality to have. the thought that hed not only settle for any quality but hed also settle for THIS kinda okay reality (when you look at the infinite unbounded possibilities) is absurdly biased. if god created this, he created all the other possibilities along with it, so this reality isnt special at all.

now when it comes to humans reaching aesthetic potential, i do agree that theres a lot there that hasnt been done or tapped into. the way forward is being imaginative and having full control of craftsmanship, but sadly those two things are opposite forces and are even achieved by different sides of the brain. the ideal artist would be two people, one would be an unstoppable force of creativity unbound by concerns of form or unity or harmony, the other would be an unmovable full on autistic editor of these ideas.

>>16514519
I like this take, anon. Ty

>>16514675
To talk about books, ya dummy

>>16515178
Is that yuri!?

>>16514519
Nice

>>16514839
I've been here for 14 years, but it doesn't take much to realize that this website is not particularly friendly to any type of traditionalism.

>>16515277
Is any place? 4chan has been always pretty diverse, only newfags thinks it's a place populated solely by white right wing incels.

>>16515306

>>16511998
I want to write a story of a brilliant sculptor, maybe Michelangelo, standing in front of a sculpture of another artist. We, today, would consider the work exquisite, beautiful. But he would say; "Look at this crap. Revisionist history. Pandering to the lowliest audience. Our culture is sliding into shit."

>>16515306
I just find it funny that you think 4chan is a good website for promoting traditionalism when hardcore porn and tons of transcontinental postmodern culture is literally a click away.

>>16515908
>you think 4chan is a good website for promoting tradition
Where did i say i that? i said "Is any place?" in a sense that most places don't like traditionalism .

>>16515939
The lack of an immediate alternative doesn't mean this is a good site for it.

>>16515956
And where did i say this is a good place? What the are the fucking are you babbling about baboon? I am against traditionalism .

Should i watch next Berlin Alexanderplatz or The Sopranos?

>>16514519
>T.socially privileged cunt

Try to communicate with people with 3SD levels below yours on daily basis, even your own family, It's not pleasant life.

>>16512258
Architecture >>>>>> Film > Music > Fine Art

>>16515976
>I am against traditionalism
Why was your first response an attack then? Christianity is traditional. It seemed like you were defending Christians posting here.

>>16516327
An attack of what? i am not >>16514839 but he is right, 4chan was always diverse place for discussion, and why shouldn't Christians post here? We got Evola autists posting all the time here even though most fascist leaders would have hated sites like this, we even got anprims from time to time even though if we followed your logic they shouldn't be allowed to post here.

>>16516453
>why shouldn't Christians post here?
Because they're being hypocrites by posting here.

>>16516230
>Film > anything besides video games
Shut up faggot.

>>16516684
How so? If anything coming to such a place (if it is wicked as I think you're implying) for missionary purposes, and fulfilling that purpose anonymously no less, is quite Christian

>>16516800
They're just adding to the spectacle and not fulfilling anything. Besides, the site is majority non-traditional still.

>>16516859
That seems like an awful generalization, am I not informing you right now and thereby doing good, perhaps even persuading onlookers to some small extent? Besides that, from an intellectual perspective, this kind of forum provides a wholly unique means of testing pure opinions against one another, so I can think of no better place for scholastic affirmations of faith besides very specific circles dedicated to that.

>>16515984
Berlin Alexanderplatz, is NGE tier

>>16516684
Have you literally read my post? Everyone is a hypocrite in some sense, Charlemagne needed to go to war and kill people but was still Christian, Hitler hated non white people but enlisted them in his army, your logic makes really no sense.

>>16516876
What are you informing me of? Every interaction on this site promotes the post-Christian, post-national, post-modern world Western civilization has created. Anonymity on a website with boards catering to Japanese media, computer media, and so on, in a format that permits thousands of users to post all on top of each other, where all posts get archived and forgotten by time due to not being able to be linked to anyone, is as non-traditional as it gets. It offers a way to practice your debating skills, sure, but don't think for a second that any meaningful work is done here. The site is an echo chamber.

>>16516859
People come for 4chan for discussion because it focuses on content posted instead of the Identity of poster unlike most other social networks, you talk like this is some kind of battlefield and that Christians are trying to take control of the website and make everyone some trad /pol/cel, no one here is looking for some kind of place where everyone agrees with each other because then there would be no discussion.

OP here. I see not many of you really took the time to think about my question. I am speaking to the feeling of doubt — yes, doubt in God — that comes from witnessing the overwhelming mediocrity of the world,
of human life, of artistic capacity. Yes there are flashes of light, flashes in the dark — or rather, in the dull gray — but ultimately the world, the universe, seems to tend towards banality, decreation, repetition, entropy. I want to have faith, but it’s hard to have faith in a God whose greatest creation, man, would be so limited in his potential for greatness, so flawed, so mediocre.

>>16516912
Discussions here are all superficial, particularly because of the lack of identity between posters. Social networks are all terrible platforms for discussion. Actual internet forums are way better for this.

>>16516922
>pic related
Books with this feel, with these questions?

>>16516922
I am thinking you are projecting your own mediocrity into the world around you, your own soul has no taste for anything, for Achilles war was the most epic shit out there and he lived for it, same for Napoleon, those men loved doing something, if you don't love doing anything that truly fulfills you then you will live a mediocre life.

>>16516955
brainlet take. i am an artist, a composer and writer. i tend my garden and love my family. i seek higher beauty and wisdom each day. but i always seem to fall back into the banal depths of human mediocrity. your warrior kings no doubt felt the same when gazing out from their thrones at their spoils of conquest— the emptiness of the world’s riches.

shit, maybe i’m a buddhist, or a gnostic, after all.

>>16511998
Everything that exists in great numbers tends towards mediocrity.
Thats just how statistics work.

>>16514357
>But where does such a standard come from, if not from the human minds themselves?
God, obviously. He put forth the existence of God in the OP. God is said to be without sin, omniscient and omnipotent. We are none of those things.

Poor perspective.
The beauty in a single kiss of teenage love justifies all creation with all its horror, all reality has aimed at this throughout history as its bullseye.
"But, sir, how can each of all the billions of these events be the solipstic center of all time?"
Yes.

>>16517541
Unfortunately OP does not operate on the level of intelligence required to grasp that

>>16517984
In addition to that novelty doesn't measure quality.
It's the great quantity of flowers in a field that makes it beautiful.

>>16516972
>buddhist, or a gnostic
No just a midwit.
A warrior is fulfilled fighting not in 'having fought' (beyond victory), an artist is fulfilled creating not having created (beyond the ecstasy of completion), a gardener is fulfilled in tending to his growth. Ruling is not fulfilling for a warrior, an artist upon completing a work either starts something else (sometimes without having finished the previous one) or feel an inner flow to pour out beauty and anxiety to not have a clear idea to express, and a farmer is nothing in winter.
Acting is Being.

>>16518108
All works have something similar to post nut clarity.

>>16514357
>Even if you are religious, do you believe God placed that standard in our minds himself?
Yes.

>>16514519
Midwit asshole.

>>16514675
>It's fucking hilarious, isn't it? Why any Christian would come to this website is beyond me.

>>16515277
t. actual tranny

>>16516972
>mediocrity
If you're a writer, improve your fucking vocabulary already and at least try to understand what words mean.

>>16518161
soijak posting is low T

>>16516922
There is a part of our nature that aspires to the transcendent -- that reaches for the heavens. But our feet are planted on earth, and we cannot fly.

That pull to the transcendent is the spiritual side of your nature, anon.

That will be fulfilled in heaven; it will always be disappointed on earth (although sometimes we get just a glimpse).

Art will not save you; its aspirations to transcendence will always fall just a little bit short (although Mozart and Bach get a lot closer than the redoubtable* Herr F., imho).

Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy, comes to mind as a rather fine book in which this issue - the aspiration to transcendence - is front and center.

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZbGOrvi_t0