/lit/ - Literature

usually you just discuss literature on the literature board and don't post r9ghey bullshit

Don't talk about Ayn Rand

wow, your actually aware you're going through "that stage". that means you must be genuinely deep unlike other peopel going through similar.

It fades, you have no great revelations. You just stop thinking about things like that.

>>1779216
I ran away to Montreal for 6 months. My morals were put to the test, and I never succumb to temptation.

What I eventually figured out is that I had a care-free childhood up until my late adolescence, that is, until I realized I must take responsibility for myself and do future orientated actions that will lead to results so I can I can live independently.

Sacrifice your wanton hedonism. Self-discipline is a must. Make the world your oyster.

saged and reported

I urge all peoples of the free world to report this thread.

You have enough personal experiences and meet enough people to get a decent life perspective. Have you gone to college? That's like a treasure of people going through this exact sort of thing. It also helps having other friends who are going through the same thing to talk to. I'm a 20 yr old college student and went through a very similar thing my first two years.

>>1779216

I went through the same thing and did not take choosing a college/career or planning for my future seriously at all. Which is a must at this age, otherwise your in limbo until 24 when you realized you wasted so many years.

I can't tell you how to not do this, but take your future seriously..... seriously!

>>1779216
Man, you were supposed to get that at like, 12-14.

Now I'm a pretentious pseudo-philosophical young adult with over-acute consciousness without angst or apathy.

>>1779222

"that stage" is discussed so frequently, mocked so often and experienced by so many whiny internet-dwelling teenagers that it would be pretty not to be aware of it.

>>1779254

*pretty hard

for me, it just retreat into background. as i get older, life get busier.. more things to be concerned about. sometimes, it shows up.. whether there is a reason or there is no apparent reason. i just let it be there until it retreats back into background

i'm 29. i think you get a real job and become jaded.

>>1779221
yes and no. it's more of, you better know what you can make sense of and what is pointless.

also:
you eventually get hair on your pubes you underage faggedy ann and andy.

>>1779272
but this isn't to say you won't waste your time on pointless shit anymore. you always will. and maybe it's not always a bad thing.

It goes by the time you're 20/21. Just tough it out.

Read as much as you can, and use it to your advantage. Then, when you're out of that phase you will come out having read a lot and somewhat wiser.

You do acid, realize there's no reason to lack confidence because you don't value the opinions of those you feel judged by, you man up, be less of a piece of shit, and make something of yourself.

I felt like OP's post when I was 15.

You either get married and have a bad fucking job or you begin to hustle and actually have an adventure filled life. It really depends which you chose and hard how you work at it.
I remember having it pretty bad some years ago. Now, I handed my boss my two weeks notice and next month I am going for 7 weeks to eastern europe (hiking, drinking) and when I come back I'm going upstate NY to hike some hills. Come september, I'll be back at school and probably work.

>>1779326
Where are you getting the money to do that? You saved that much?

>>1779328
It's cheap. The whole 7 weeks, including rent, food, travel + airtickets cost around 1500$. The air tickets cost around 60% of that at around 850$, so cost of life there is extremely cheap.
Nope, don't got no wealthy sponsors or parents, but if you chose well, do your research, there's lotsa cheap as hell places to have awesome fun.
Also, I may get my teeth fixed there, because their dentists are MUCH cheaper.

>>1779338
Oh and to answer your question - yes. I work a 13.75$/h part time job and was able to save up. Live frugal, spend money on things that matter to you. This means the world to me so I rejected buying new monitor and vidya card for computer and a few other things and bam, can't fucking wait for June.

You read the Sorrows of Young Werther. I urge all of you who feel like this, not only OP, to do this. It is the ultimate cure.

>>1779231
We touched a bone, have we, Edgyfag?

Lol, this stage of my life was so bad it gave me a tumor on my brain.

>>1779296
Best advice in the thread.

You also engage in aerobic exercise and bodybuild because despite the prejudices of anti-jocks you otherwise respect, being physically fit drastically improves your mental clarity. You eventually come to realize that pleasurable feedback from your physical sensorium is the anchor of self-confidence. You also come to realize that regardless of how emotionally mature and intelligent she is, if she's attractive she cares about your body first and your mind second. Unless she has daddy issues.

Regardless of age you also wish you'd figured this out ten years ago.

Here you go bro:
http://www.wikihow.com/Deal-with-an-Existential-Crisis

Where there's a Will there's a Wiki.

You should have dropped out of high school at the at of 15 and taken all the equivalent class credits at a local community college and gotten a GED.

Then you should have stared working on general ed requirements for a uni.

Working hard destroys your ability to think about anything other than what you're doing.

As for your motivation for doing all this?

That's up to you.

You realize that you're creating your own suffering, and it's not the world that sucks, it's you. You either stay miserable throughout your life and take up drinking, drugs, and extramarital affairs to numb the pain or try to figure out what your problems/questions are and how to solve/answer them. If you choose the former, you become jaded. If you choose the latter, you generally lead a difficult but exciting life that might be fulfilling (think Steve Jobs dropping out of college, Herman Hesse's Siddhartha leaving home, etc etc).

Shake your head vigorously to get faggoty thoughts out of your head, think to yourself "yo, my life is pretty sweet", then drink a 40 & plow that chick who's been friendzoning you for the past couple months.

I used to be fashionably melancholic, too. Then I just woke up & realized how much fun I could be having, instead of being sad.

Develop a prescription drug addiction like all well adjusted mature adults these days.

>>1779370
Oh shit... I was:
>>1779296

...are you me?

>going through that apathetic pseudo-philosophical angst-driven existentialist 'over-acute consciousness' no confidence pretentious bullshit stage of adolescence
>no confidence

Forget all that other crap, it's you lack of confidence and inability to connect with others that has made you feel alienated from modern life.

Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

If you feel alienated, it's probably because others have made you feel that way. Most likely they feel threatened by your greatness.

Why do teens these days go through stages like this? What about the modern world encourages this? I doubt people in medieval times went through this.

>>1779216
>eighteen years old
i wnet through this stage, at like, 14 to 16
man, grow up, you're lacking

>>1779528
You forgot the obligatory screenshot from The Fountainhead.

>>1779524

no no no, op's unique perspective that he has gained from being a social retard has allowed him to view the world for what it really is, he has a heightened consciousness now! he understands the mundanity, the monotony, the superficiality, the futility of life, don't you see!

op's lack of confidence was but the first step on a path of sublime enlightenment; there is no going back now, not to those inferior social halfwits!

I still have this and I'm 25, but I realised long ago it's all my own fault. Just find it hard to change.

>>1779569

"At the beginning of human history, man lost some of the basic animal instincts in which an animal's behavior is embedded and by which it is secured. Such security, like paradise, is closed to man forever; man has to make choices. In addition to this, however, man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people tell him to do (totalitarianism)." - Viktor Frankl

>>1779569
Industrialization created a job market first centered on factory work and civil service; it's since moved into IT and service. Public education is relatively new. "Rites of passage", "learning a trade", etc etc are becoming less common. This leaves teenagers in developed nations experiencing the disappointment of institutionalized education systems, menial or inane jobs, marital infidelity, unhealthy convenience food, long periods of time spent indoors, and a sedentary lifestyle. This, to me, seems to be a perfect formula for making any human completely miserable. This life situation pushes "well-adjusted/popular" young adults into behaviors such as binge drinking, recreational drug use, the use of tanning beds, casual sex, and self-expression through material culture and fashion. The less "well-adjusted" (OP) are less inclined to try the aforementioned behaviors because of health concerns, lack of confidence, etc etc. He is, then, in a world where he experiences the negative aspects of his modern society (drudgery, materialism/shallowness, sub-par education, unfulfilling jobs, alternating periods of extreme boredom and stress, meaninglessness, etc) but none of the positive aspects (social interaction, physical intimacy, use of recreational drugs, enjoyment of material wealth, display of status, etc).

Not necessarily. Some of us get to live in that forever. The thing is to turn it from weakness to strength.

read the Unnamable by Sammuell Beckett

the progress in this thread sucks.

so do you need to take/create confidence or can it be given? imo self-worth seems to come from external things.

>>1779648

Well, you are consumerist peasant swine you would think that.

>>1779648

Self-confidence from outside sources only leads to insecurity and seeking the constant approval of others.

You have to work towards self-approval. Once you've earned that, you've got all you need.

>>1779652
... i can change....

>>1779569
>Why do teens these days go through stages like this? What about the modern world encourages this? I doubt people in medieval times went through this.

I think it has something to do with leisure. People in older times had more to do in terms of maintaining security, growing their own food, etc. They were fulfilling basic needs that took their attention away from existentialist bullshit. This is why most scholars/knowledgable of the past were wealthy with an exuberant amount of free-time thanks to their nigger slaves. People now adays hop to the corner (or click a button on their mouse) to take care of food, they input a few digits into their home safety system and then walk into a foyeur of comfy couches. Entertainment and schooling definitely do the gruntwork of modern distraction, but you have copious amounts of free time to dig too deeply if :
You are smart as a means of subverting your parents or peers in an effort to differentiate, and analyze that they engage in blinding distraction..yet, you lack confidence from being so alienated from these very individuals to feel like you can succeed. So, I think that's exactly the conditions that create so many pre-life crisis, it's just an abundance of free-time + some grappling disapproval of those around you or how they operate.

At least that's what I've come to the conclusion of, and I feel only very close to overcoming my own bad phase : I was self-isolating for 4 years, cheated through home school, had literally days and days of doing nothing but thinking, and now I'm at a community college hoping for transfer and wrestling with my moods because if I don't dominate them somehow, they're definitely what will (and always has) held me back.

>>1779569
>Why do teens these days go through stages like this? What about the modern world encourages this? I doubt people in medieval times went through this.

I think it has something to do with leisure. People in older times had more to do in terms of maintaining security, growing their own food, etc. They were fulfilling basic needs that took their attention away from existentialist bullshit. This is why most scholars/knowledgeable of the past were wealthy with an exuberant amount of free-time thanks to their nigger slaves. People now adays hop to the corner (or click a button on their mouse) to take care of food, they input a few digits into their home safety system and then walk into a foyer of comfy couches. Entertainment and schooling definitely do the grunt work of modern distraction, but you have copious amounts of free time to dig too deeply if :

You are smart (as a means of subverting your parents or peers in an effort to differentiate yourself), and analyze that they engage in blinding distraction, and thus reject it..yet, lack confidence from being so alienated from these very individuals that you don't feel like you can succeed.

So, I think that's exactly the conditions that create so many pre-life crisis, it's just an abundance of free-time + childish psuedo-intellectualism + some grappling disapproval of those around you and how they operate.

At least that's what I've come to the conclusion of, and I feel only very close to overcoming my own bad phase : I was self-isolating for 4 years, cheated through home school, had literally days and days of doing nothing but thinking, and now I'm at a community college hoping for transfer and wrestling with my moods, because if I don't dominate them somehow, they're definitely what will (and always have been the things that) hold me back.

Confidence is a performance that becomes real (much like everything else in the entire world).

So suck a dick.

>>1779216
Just take your Prozac, John.

>>1780042
Prozac, for all your heteronormative needs.

job for the daytime and beer for the evenings. dont let the thinking get a chance

>>1779776
I read this and wept. Twice.

>>1779645
Christ, don't break the kid just yet.

>>1779326
can you give more info, how did you get it that cheap, I want to do what you are doing.

You mature into a genuine intellectual instead of a pseudo-intellectual.

Your "pretentious bullshit" phase where you get into Camus, Dada art, and the works of the Romantic poets may make you seem like an ass when you get into it at 18 or 19, but within a few years you are actually educated enough that you can talk about the arts intelligently without sounding like some prick obsessed with showing off and forming moronic opinions.

It's hormones. It just feels like it isn't because your body is producing a shitload of hormone at that age and the mind thinks it's something new and exciting. People don't receive miraculous wisdom that allow them to grow up out of this phase. They don't. It's not some sort of psychological maturity thing or any of the other coming-of-age metaphors like emerging from your cocoon as a beautiful god damn butterfly. It's fucking hormones.

What actually happens is that people get tired of the "dark depression" pattern instead of secretly glorifying it. Then they stop thinking that they are a special snowflakes. Then they accept that it's fucking hormone stress and they go jogging. You think you have an existantial breakdown? You want to get rid of your existantial breakdown? You don't have one. Go fucking jogging. Sweat. Get a gym membership and sweat. Hormones don't shut up on their own.

I was in that stage when I was 16-18, now I don't give a fuck and just watch animu all day erry day.

You count the bullets you own and it keeps coming up not enough. So you don't do anything.

>>1780841
Wow that's so deep and edgy. You're deep, bro. Deep and edgy.

>>1780679
Not him, but you've got a lot of options to look into when trying to live for free:

WWOOF, Hare Krishna, Intentional Communities, public libraries/university libraries instead of paying tuition, couchsurfing.org, freeganism, subsistence agriculture, voluntary poverty/homelessness

I've led a life of leisure to the extent that I've been able to perceive all societal institutions from a purely objective standpoint, and I can tell you this: they all exist to ameliorate our perception of our own mortal needs. If you can accept your own perceptual limitations (and they are infinite), you should probably get the fuck on with your life. I, for one, can't do that quite yet, but I'm getting there.

in b4 pretentious retort from some retard with internet access. You all are the dregs of society, whose thoughts have been collectivized by use of this image board for the sake of keeping retards in one cyberplace.

>>1780897
>in b4 pretentious retort from some retard with internet access. You all are the dregs of society, whose thoughts have been collectivized by use of this image board for the sake of keeping retards in one cyberplace.

You're a comedian.

>>1780900

this kind of thinking fueled my drug use in high school and my first year of college that eventually lead to run ins with the law. im 22 now and most angsty bs has left me. my existential crisis gave into giving fucks about shit. anything is possible the glass is half full mode of thinking. existentialism is a world of despair existentialism is a world of limitless possibility just as much.

I found out sex helps a lot. I just had sex helped a lot. That or going on walks.

i'm 21 and want to move to a cabin in the middle of nowhere. am i still angsty?

>>1781007
What this guy said.

I did a lot of drugs, the most beneficial of which were mushrooms. Had a few bad relationships, went through a phase of being an alcoholic teenager who chased tail and got in fights.

Now I'm graduating college and I've found a nice balance between the fringe and the unthinking median member of society.

>Be sixteen
>Trying to write
>Stuff that was sixteen year old 2deep4u
>Turn seventeen
>BAM! Angst, existential crises, fuckin' self harm, getting my heart broken by bitches left right and center
>Fucking girls, fucking guys, experimenting with all sorts of shit
>Never writing
>This goes on for four or five years
>Settle down
And now I can write stuff that I can legitimately say I love and am proud of. The angsty phase is just concentrated living. It's life, but life usually isn't that intense. You need to do that shit to stop stagnating. Just live it up, it's the perfect excuse to try some stupid shit, write some bad poetry, experience stuff you'd never try without addled hormones and fuck around like a kid again. Then there's a thirty year gap between then and your mid life crisis, when you can do it all again.

>>1779216
>catcherintherye.jpg

OP I'm 18 years old, white and of middle-class; I went through this stage a year ago. You've come out of that point in your life when everything is great and you have now entered the great "surprise behind the curtain," the reality that life fucking sucks. Here's the secret behind curtain number 2, though; life's what you make it. At least, for the most part. This world is a part existentialist part deterministic hybrid of terrible events and the triumphs of the determined. You're 18 years old, I'm assuming you're about to graduate high school and soon to go to college. Embrace it. Get new experiences, flirt with pretty girls, and for fuck's sakes, get drunk. The last valid piece of advice I can offer you is this; stop thinking about the things you have no power over and change your attitude. Perspective is everything and consciously making an effort to appreciate life will, surprisingly, make life a lot more enjoyable man.

You get to college, and you start fucking girls, doing drugs, and getting drunk, then all of that shit disappears because either the meaning of life doesn't matter when some big-tittied whore is choking on your cock to get back at "daddy" for touching her as a kid.

Yep.

>apathetic pseudo-philosophical angst-driven existentialist 'over-acute consciousness' no confidence pretentious bullshit

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH LITERATURE

PLEASE TELL ME

anybody else think it's really embarrassing to see middle-class white kids disparaging their middle-class white kid backgrounds?

Hmm. I almost had that but I hit that age after two years of clinical depression so I was the queen of optimism,... just, simultaneously cynical. I'm 27 now. I only seem to dislike people in general more as I get older. But now it's not as philosophical. It's like, I go to my job, almost everyone is incompetent and the system is a mess and it just infuriates me. You get a different sort of bitterness, dare I say, maybe towards yourself. The late twenties, if you're personally goal-driven, is a "wtf am I doing with myself!?" time. I'm finding myself very driven to get art and writing out there and published before I see 30. The years after college fly by and you realize you haven't done much other than pay the bills and it's depressing.

Same age, race, and class as you are OP. And I went through that phase when I was 15-16.

Truth be told, I never really noticed I was in that phase. All I know is that about ten months ago I decided to stop being a hard-core existentialist and focus on the here, the now, and the future. As to my "no confidence" I'd had that problem since I was twelve, and still have it to a limited degree. Trust me on this OP, you'll get over it pretty quick, or at least I did.

I just started to try acting like a nice person to everybody I met. Fuck being a cynic/pretentious douchebag, that doesn't help me when it comes to getting people like to be around me. But I know a guy who is going through that phase, and nobody likes him, they don't tell him, but they all HATE the guy.

I have some more stories, if you want to hear about them OP. Having a friend who likes psychology as a hobby is interesting.

i think people get depressed because they watch too much tv and advertising and think they're really important

I've had some 'existensial crisises' throughout the years, and I'm 20 now. The people that brags about having it at 14 aren't any smarter than whomever has them when they're 25 as this is all about structure. The people that has them at 14 are probably usually the people that had no friends at school or were bullied or something like that.

That's why this 'phase' is a more common thing in modern world than it's been previously: before they had religion as a vital structure.

I've had some crisises like that because I was bullied and had few friends. I've been going through one this year as I started university. Most of my friends have moved, things haven't turned out quite as I would like them to, and I've also lost interest in the subject I was supposed to be studying. On top of that, since everything about universe is so 'free', that's another cause for it.

I'm always deeply interested in societal 'truths' and systems. I believe a lot of people are easily bound by societal structures, even led to believe that 'that's how it's supposed to be'... that follows the very usual 'study hard, get a job, get a wife/husband and kids then die'. All the people I know does this mindlessly. Not that it's necessarily all-too bad if it grants them happiness, but I think it's a very narrow path, I think you should never stop to try and be reflected and conscious. I think you should always continue to 'educate' as well, and I think that it's strange that 'most people' utterly stray from that state-of-mind when they finish school.

In other words, I think the best way to escape such an 'existential crisis' is to either submit to the societal structures, or to create your own. Only the latter requires an effort.

>>1782076

since everything about UNIVERSITY is so 'free'.*

Also, I started having such crisises when I was 13-14 I believe, I was bullied and had few friends all through middle school to junior high school, until I started high school and had lots of them.

23 here, went through the existential stuff. Existential despair is basically fear that your life and existence (but more importantly your life) is meaningless, so the cure is to find meaning. The best way- and this is going to sound cliché and sappy, but it's true- is love. Cultivate love for your gf/bf, for your parents and siblings, for your dog, for your house, for your car, for your town and your neighbors. It's weird, but when you actually actively start loving things (and it's definitely something you have to cultivate), you get this feeling of completeness that is impossible to describe. Most people think that being loved makes life better, but it doesn't. Being the giver of love is what makes it better. But again, it's something you have to work on. What does this have to do with existentialism? It makes existence bearable.

tl;dr - volunteer in your town, buy a thoughtful gift for your folks, take your dog to the park.

It helps. I promise.

>>1782092

It's one thing to adapt a positive and loving mindset, another to actively pursuit 'love'. I don't think that's a good idea, and certainly not if you do so mainly to reaffirm a 'meaning of life'. Then it's mainly an escape. If an escape's what you're looking for, drugs could just as well work for you.

>>1782167
No no no, it's not about "pursuing" love. You're right, that's escapist and it will only lead to creepy girlfriend obsession, and no one wants that. It's about giving love to others, all others, freely with no strings attached. It puts you in tune with the world around you.

I'm 15 and I got over that stage two years ago

>>1782184

>that must mean I'm intelligent!

>>1782184
reported bro, sorry

>>1782200
I thought underageban was a joke... Stupid Americans

>going through that

captcha: sage s@ge

>>1779216
Solution is to realize hitler was right, liberalism promotes white genocide, and that whites have every right to homogenous nations of their own, and that we are responsible for everything good in this world today.

>>1783224

>mfw heterosis

OP: from a 28 year old, it helps to have responsibilities. I have to care for elderly parents so I found a job as soon as I finished my degree and spend money on games or the occasional surfing trip. You do shit you enjoy. That's it.

You will never get out of the stage if you hold true to your beliefs, and that is OK.

If you want to go back to the beginning, read Plato.

I'm 22, and I don't plan to get out of my existential crisis. Like Nietzsche said, "Man must become better and more evil." The solution to existentialist doubt and angst is existentialist decision, which is better and more evil.