/lit/ - Literature

>>18741328
In certain respects as it pertains to personal responsibilities and the ever more present Peter Pan culture running rampant nowadays and the wide-spread nihilism. But otherwise no, I'm gonna be one of those eccentric boomers that people will always think of as crazy because they will never understand how much I just love being alive and living.

Nah I'm still living with my mama

I'm 22 and aiming for lung cancer or consumption by 30

>>18741369
Go out of your way to not be the real you and live in a state of perpetual stress if that's what you want.

>>18741328
Turned 43 recent and feel fucking great!

Pros of being old:
>wisdom is the antidote to anxiety and depression
>sexual desire much easier to control
>having kids is incredibly rewarding
>wealth of experience to understand the present and plan the future
>less pressure to prove oneself to your peers
>pattern recognition game becomes psychic-tier

Cons of being old:
>injuries take more time to heal
>drinking hard and doing drugs takes more out of you
>generally less spontaneous lifestyle
>shrinking social group
>many people your age have already given up on any of their dreams and are bitter as fuck

>>18741353
Based. I feel as though that's what's it's about too, for instance I looked at my receding hairline and felt old. But then I just turned my attention to more learning, and fitness, and I'm back to feeling great.

>>18741328
no, but i'm ugly, and it makes me want to die. there is no redemption in ugliness

I'm 30 and it sucks but at the same time I was a total dumbsass in my early 20s, if you're lucky you really do become wiser as you get older and early 30s is probably the peak of your life where you aren't physically declining (too much) yet but you're also smarter than you've ever been. I like being old (for this website).

>>18741392
30s and 40s are based and arguably your prime, and people who look down on them are stupid faggots.

>>18741401
well after 35 your test starts to drop (for men) and your risk for a bunch of diseases increases, a lot of people gain weight etc. so that's why i say early 30s is best. you'll won't start a boxing career at 33 but you don't have any major powertrain issues and ideally you've professionally and personally come into your own by this time. hopefully at 45 i'll be able to look back at myself at 30 and see a dumbass, but by then you really have to treat your body like a classic car.

>>18741401
Being old and experienced is awesome, you've pushed life hard enough that you feel accomplished and driven still, so you do not suffer prolonged depression like many who slip into a permanent state of despair:
>get fat
>enter horrible relationships
>divorce rape
>kids hate you
>9 to 5 wagie cagie until you die
>basically the perfect slave to the system

Anxiety on the other hand, if you develop your life to be aware that ups and downs are a normal part of growth, you can mostly eliminate anxiety. Why worry when you are able to function as an artist making $1,000 a month or 10k a month? The trouble with life in 2021 is that everything is made 1000 times more difficult for young men to rebel and achieve anything outside of the system. Rebellion in 2021 isn't even seen as cool, since the system runs so well and has taught the NPCs that masks and vaccines make you a good person!
>not surprising that young men overdose so much

I FEEL & AM OLDER; I DO NOT «FEEL OLD» —ID EST: I DO NOT FEEL LIKE AN OLDSTER—, NOR DO I LOOK IT: I SEEM APPROXIMATELY A DECADE YOUNGER; STRANGERS OFTEN ASSUME THAT I AM IN MY LATE TEENS, OR EARLY TWENTIES, HAHA.

>>18741419
I'm 43 and my body is still in great shape, big difference is that you can't just throw caution to the wind. Maybe you don't have to treat your body like a classic car yet but you certainly can't go beating the living shit out of yourself like a 19 year old, hahaha...

>>18741429
sure you can be in great shape in 40s, i'm just saying early 30s has the best physical to mental ratio.

>>18741428
Yes, being weak and effeminate makes you look younger.

>>18741432
It is crazy to witness how many dudes peak at like 20-21 and are fat and defeated before they hit 30.

>>18741438


1. NOT REALLY; IT IS MATTER OF NEOTENY, NOT OF STRENGTH (?), NOR OF MASCULINITY, OR FEMININITY.

2. JUST STOP POSTING.

Bros, I'm so fucking afraid of hitting 25 and not being a somebody. I feel like I'm running out of time to make something out of myself yet I don't even have enough time to become a somebody because that will take various stages of trial and errors. I'm having my 24th birthday in two months.

How do I get out of this mental prison?

>>18741463
well if you aren't already on the way there then what the hell are you doing, what is your plan

the vast majority of people throughout human history were not only nobodies, but half starved shit eaters just trying to get by, and many still are today especially in the lesser half of the world. if you feel an obligation to be special, maybe your real issue it that you falsely view notable people as shining gems among a sea of baroque pearls, when in reality no person is an island and a lot of people are standing on the shoulders of unearned opportunity. perhaps you should dump the libertarian idea of genius and accept that you will never be whatever person you think is great, because such people are consequences of their time, station, and money. nabokov would not be nabokov if he was born to a middle class white bread family and so on. quite being a bitch.

or you could just git gud lol

>>18741463
25 is nothing, some people turn their life around when they're in their late 40s and 50s, so don't be a bitch and be proactive, rather than stagnant and overcome with dread and apathy thinking it's all over when it's fucking not as long as you have the balls to continue. Because as soon as you let yourself think that it's too late to do anything, you've lost and the world will walk over you like you're nothing, so don't do that.

>>18741378
sounds cool dude, Currently 28 myself and am very much looking forward to my 30s, setting myself up right now to have a solid secure and active job with plenty of room for maneuverability when I get tired of it.

Already feeling the drinking and the drugs thing pretty heavy though

>>18741463
My life became infinitely more interesting when I just started doing everything on a whim. Life plan for normoid: work at grocery store in hometown until 25 and impregnate a fat chick, pay for her spawn until you expire gracelessly of diabetes and alcohol
there is more to that go on a mountain traversal without a tent or cellphone

>>18741581
As soon as you opt out of the rat race and start making your own decisions and embrace the incredible uncertainty this approach to life has as a requirement, life gets infinitely better and more interesting, I agree, and you feel a lot better, despite those rare instances of feeling down from time to time because such a lifestyle is solitary in essence and you're gonna be on your own for long streches of time, and that's not at all a negative. If anything, it does wonders for your personal clarity, etc.

>>18741591
This is also true, I'm almost completely alienated from anyone who isn't some kind of freak case at this point

>>18741620
But there's a silver lining to that solitude, and it lies in being connected with all the others that are going through the same thing and have the balls to pull it off. So you can at least take some comfort in that.

I'm 34 and I feel like things have finally come online. I only truly started to feel mature and feel like an adult when I was 28, and since then it's been onward and upward.

This Fall I am all but certain to complete my Master of Arts in English Literature, which involves writing my thesis and defending it. I'm extremely confident of this and feel that my thesis is going to be a considerable accomplishment for the rest of the days of my life. Something I might even get published in an academic journal.

But that's nothing compared to my artistic achievements. I've gotten several short stories and poems published, and last year during the pandemic I started work on a major story that will span multiple books. I think this is going to be my masterpiece, and I anticipate writing it for the next ten years at least. Maybe even the next 20 years. I feel like this is going to be my crowning achievement as both a writer and poet. I feel immensely confident in this big work I'm writing, and I've only just begun it. I know that it will be true, and good, and beautiful, and that it will glorify God in ways both overt and subtle. I know that this thing I am writing will be a great work of art and there will be nothing like it by the time I am done.

My only slight hesitation is that I wonder if I won't just decline and die suddenly when the story is done, decades from now when I'm in my 50s or 60s. I suppose that when my tale is told I might simply have no more reason to live, and just die within a year of its finishing.

But we'll see. Right now, I'm feeling great. I feel full of life and purpose.

>>18741574
Do not take life so seriously, that makes the entire process so much quicker to understand

>>18741627
Awesome to hear, you're getting both a master degree and are writing your masterpiece, on top of having plenty of things published already. How difficult was it to get the process started and to have someone believe in your work so much that they wanted to publish it? Did you have some luck with that or did you just try enough times that you finally got a deal?

>My only slight hesitation is that I wonder if I won't just decline and die suddenly when the story is done, decades from now when I'm in my 50s or 60s. I suppose that when my tale is told I might simply have no more reason to live, and just die within a year of its finishing.
You, yourself, know that writing is its own journey and that you're never quite "finished" with it.

>>18741627
Holy SHIT 10 years for a book?

Wow... what's your outline like? How do you dream it up?
Amazing goal to set for yourself anon, but don't forget to have other hobbies to keep you grounded. :)

>>18741458
Provided it's not of the soft-faced femboy type, which hits the wall hard inside and out before 40, neoteny is a good thing, if strange as a perspective. The main advantage to it is how long the peak is, the main drawback being its lateness. The best possible background for the type is aristocratic, or Italian, where an emphasis on extended family accommodates widely differing growth trajectories. This is not to mention that the enjoyable intensities of youth also come with susceptibility to panic, and that one can get far too much of the latter anywhere that isn't serene. Such was the case with Goethe, and doubtless a lot of guys who identify with him to some degree. I am 58.

>>18741633
you think I am taking life too seriously? I'm really excited to be able to do the job I want while also having several hobbies I love on the side, I also have a large social network filled with colorful individual ranging from many walks of life and points of view. I'm really enjoying my life and the direction it seems I'm going to be taking in the future

>>18741635
>How difficult was it to get the process started and to have someone believe in your work so much that they wanted to publish it? Did you have some luck with that or did you just try enough times that you finally got a deal?

I kind of just brute forced it. Ironically I've had more success as a poet than as a short story writer, and I say it's ironic because I wrote poetry as a teenager but I took a long break from it and only resumed writing it at the end of 2017. But apparently I'm a natural as a poet. Or at least people like it. I've had more poems published than short stories despite formally committing to poetry for a shorter amount of time.

>>18741662
>Wow... what's your outline like? How do you dream it up?

I have a running .odt file where I keep the ideas I dream up. As for the story itself, it just manifests, as I go along. I know the general outline. I know the characters. I know where I want the story to go. The minute details just come to me.

It's a very big story, and one reason it's so big is that I'm committed to telling a story that portrays its characters very intimately. It's a very fantastical story; it's actually in the genre of science fiction. But I find myself intensely focused on my main characters and the ebb and flow of their daily lives, even when those daily lives take place amid the strange events that intrude upon them. So I feel intensely committed to telling this big story with these big characters in this big setting, but also telling the story in a way that lets us know the moods and the mind of all my characters. So the story keeps growing. I feel compelled to tell this huge story in which the very fate of the world is at stake, and yet have space within that story for a simple, plain day in the sun, in the countryside, with all my main characters, and how this makes them all feel. So I want to capture both the big and the small. This makes the story need to be big.

>>18741684
What I mean is, if you have setbacks, don't let them become anchors. Damn I had a buddy who lost one girlfriend in his early 20's and he completely fell apart. He literally never got over his oneitis and took his life incredibly too seriously in the woe-is-me way. Being able to let shit slide is such an important skill to have.

>>18741688
Seems like you have a great plan and it flows to you nicely, is it generally when you are dreaming in bed? Or in the morning first thing when you wake up? Any particular routine you have to get your creative juices flowing, or do they intrude on your thoughts sometimes too?

>>18741688
share your poems, anon. you seem confident in your art. I want to get an organic inspiration

>>18741712
my goodness my friend no trouble there. as I was saying earlier, I'm 28 and am only now setting myself up for a good job. Ive messed up a time or two already in my life but am still pushing through.

I very much agree though that getting too hung up on setbacks is an easy and common mistake people make in life. Take the time to learn as much as can be learned from them, then let them fall away.

>>18741721
When I was young, I dated a woman who was signed to a country music deal in Nashville and was getting ready to move when she hurt her ankle after singing on stage at some rodeo.

I shit you not, she made such a big deal and became such a prima donna from that injury that she ended up losing her record deal and tried to sue like 50+ people for the injury and she played it up and faked her pain for like 10+ years and finally got like a 20k settlement out of it almost 12 years later or some insane shit but in the meantime completely threw away her entire singing career and now manages a chain of tanning salons.

She literally could have just got on the plane and had a record contract, but instead wanted to make a massive deal out of a sprained, not even broken, ankle. That shit went on for over a decade and she made sure to tell everyone she was suing so and so.Like holy fuck, let it go?

>>18741328
Not especially, but I never have really had the aversion to aging that most seem to have, I do not feel as though I am loosing my youth or feel a need to try and hold on to it. I think the best part of getting old is being able to see the beauty of youth without hormones confusing things. I see a beautiful 20 year old woman and that is all she is to me, a beautiful 20 year old woman, there is no desire or even interest, just appreciation for seeing a bit of beauty to brighten the day.

t. 40

>>18741715
>Seems like you have a great plan and it flows to you nicely, is it generally when you are dreaming in bed? Or in the morning first thing when you wake up? Any particular routine you have to get your creative juices flowing, or do they intrude on your thoughts sometimes too?

Things just come to me. They just do. I think and think until I don't need to think any more.

>>18741717
I'm not going to share too much, because I'm still nervous about getting discovered as a 4channer this early. But here: this is a poem I dream of placing somewhere. It hasn't been published yet, despite it being about three years old, written around 2019 or so. I dream of placing it somewhere because it's very precious to me. I'll screenshot it here, so that some day, hopefully, you'll see it somewhere and know it was mine.

>>18741721
I'm 28 in three months and have been working as a somewhat shit copywriter for the last four years, confused as to how to progress and what I want from my thirties. I'm glad to see someone near my age with such self-determination and security. Godspeed anon, it's inspiring

>>18741419
>materialism
>conservative body politics

Turning 21 next month. How do you even jump start your life? I want to get out and I want to do so many things but studying and work gets in the way. I'm learning Portuguese so I can eventually travel to Portugal and maybe even buy a holiday house there.
I have learnt to have absolutely no plans and bludge off of my parents (but not too much) until I graduate and find a bf who can go half and half on a nice country home. Or maybe I'll become a learn Mandarin and become a monk
What were your plans when you were 21?
Thankfully I'm over the drugs, partying and alcohol cause it's legal once you turn 18 here. I think that's something America needs, would increase the general maturity level.

>>18742311
Also to add onto this, what are some things you wish you did when you were younger to prevent certain bodily pains and aches.

>>18741328
No, I have taken up the position of Don Juanism and can induce a manic state at any moment

>>18741328
I'm in my 30s and only now I feel my life has truly begun.
I also kind of understand those who chase immortality now. I do feel like before realizing it I already spent half of my eternity, and the other half isn't enough to do much of anything.

>>18742315
I destroyed my knee but don't regret it because it happened out of doing something I loved
it would have been a lot worse if I was unfit so I suggest hitting the gym consistantly for longetivity

I'm not sure what "feeling old" means. I am somewhat old, but I don't "feel" old, I just know I am.

I just turned 28 and yes, I feel old but I also realize that having this sort of conscious formed much earlier in the time and culture I live in was more or less an impossibility.

I'm an old soul!! ^o^ *_*

>>18741684
You write like a colossal faggot

Birthday

In the days when they used to celebrate my birthday,
I was happy and no one was dead.
In my old house, even my birthday was tradition for centuries,
And everyone’s happiness, even mine, was upheld like a religion.

In the days when they used to celebrate my birthday,
I had the health that comes from not seeing anything at all,
From being knowledegable only within my family,
And from not having the hopes the others had for me.
When I came to have hopes, I no longer knew how to have hopes.
When I came to look at life, I’d lost the sense of life.

Yes, what I was by my own supposing,
What I was by heart and parentage,
What those long evenings in the provinces made me,
What them loving me and me being their boy made me,
What I was — oh, my God!, until today, I didn’t know what I was...
So distant!...
(Not even an echo...)
The days when they used to celebrate my birthday!

What I am today is dampness in the back hall,
Making things sprout on the walls...
What I am today (and the house of those who loved me shimmers through my tears),
What I am today is they’ve sold the house,
And all of them are dead.
What I am today is outliving myself like a cold match...

In the days when they used to celebrate my birthday...
That love of mine was like a person, those days!
Physical desire of the soul to meet itself there another time,
On a voyage both metaphysical and fleshly,
With the duality of I and me,...
Wolfing the past like bread, without time like butter in your teeth!

I see everything again so clearly it blinds me to what’s right here...
There’s the table set with more places than usual, more of our best china, more cups,
The over-loaded side-board — sweets, fruit, more in shadow under the shelf — ,
My old aunts, all my different cousins, and everything for my sake,
In the days when they used to celebrate my birthday...

Stop, my heart!
Don’t think! Leave thinking to the brain!
O my God, my God, my God!
Today I don’t have birthdays.
I last.
The days add themselves to me.
I’ll be old when I get there.
Nothing else.
Damn me for not keeping the past purloined in my pocket!

The days when they used to celebrate my birthday!

>>18741832
Do something adventurous while you're still young enough!

>>18742311
The best way is to get on a plane and dump yourself in Portugal and get a shitty job, go to the bars, learn the culture from the bottom up.

>>18741328
Turned 28 this year, not really feeling older or anything on the contrary thank to the pandemic I had time to spend on my hobbies and to try new things, got a "decent" job that I can do from home but I always feel like my career is bullshit so I am not sure how to feel about it.

I still haven´t written as much as I liked because I cringe at myself and delete it or I don't continue with it, so I need a way to stop cringing at my own writing.

But apart from that the only thing that makes me "sad" is never having a relationship or close friends; I am not an autistic sperg and I am able to be cordial and funny with most people but was never able to have something that lasts speaking of friends.

At least I am not bitter about it, and during all my life I never thought that I would make it past my 25 so I am not even sure what to do with my life.

The only thing that worries me is that as older I get the more I can´t stop thinking about boypussy.

>>18744253
>But apart from that the only thing that makes me "sad" is never having a relationship or close friends; I am not an autistic sperg and I am able to be cordial and funny with most people but was never able to have something that lasts speaking of friends.
This so much. I'm 27 and feel as if I've never really lived. I'll ignore the last line of your otherwise very relatable post.

>>18744278
I'll be your friend, Anon.

>>18741328
>how much I just love being alive and living
why do you say this when you know it isn't true?

>>18744287
Seek help.

>>18744278
As I said I don't feel too bad about it because I think that I have "lived". Since I am a degenerate I have been with prostitutes (with and without a penis) , did stupid shit like arson, riding a motorcycle drunk, shit like that.

I am not telling you to do the same anon, because not everyone is the same. But you should try to do things that maybe you never did because you feel ashamed or that you would be not good enough, the important thing is just to remember that "Memento Mori" .
So seize the day my man.

>>18744824
Seek help.

I turned 20 this year and it made me think about my wasted youth - no friendships, romance, fun memories or lessons learned.
Putting aside the feeling of being an outcast, this lack of development will hinder me in later progress in life. I study hard so that I can get a good job and maybe buy the happiness that was "I.O.U."-ed to me while I was a teenager. In all honesty, sometimes this seems unlikely because what's wrong with me is the void in my heart, but this void clogs up all the holes that would otherwise be there, waiting for nice people, things and memories to fill them in. Instead of those, it's concrete, and nothing can move it out. I'll be in a permanent state of dullness.

I recently watched, or listened to, a video from a feels thread on /gif/ describing something akin to my situation as being on a sinking ship, and as everybody swims to their ideal islands to survive, I am left to go down with the ship as nobody had ever guided me or prepared me for when the ship begins to sink, teaching me to swim, to survive. It's as if I should have "known" that swimming exists. Who's to say that I wasn't supposed to learn to glide on the air by putting a foot in my mouth? The best I can do is cling to a floating barrel, go wherever the sea current takes me and make the most of wherever I end up, should I end up anywhere at all.

>>18745078
>I turned 20 this year and it made me think about my wasted youth - no friendships, romance, fun memories or lessons learned.

If you were 30 that would be less pathetic.
You are still literally a child, go outside.

>>18745078
Are you insane?!?!

Find some sort of dangerous and/or challenging work in another country or in your country. Go live. Save up some cash and then go on an adventure.

>idea 1
Buy a camper van and travel your country doing photography.
>idea 2
Open a food stand somewhere with a gimmick
>idea 3
Get into street promotion of live-event tickets and such as things re-open. Cater towards the scared vaxxers who want live music venues with vaxxed people only.
>idea 4
Write about being under-developed and a plan to challenge yourself over the next few years. Do something that is difficult, some hobby, or some art. Document it.
>idea 5
Get a shit job and learn everything you can about the company inside-out. After a year if you aren't the manager and looking to cross-sideways into managing a cell phone shop or payday lending place(60k+ a year for sure jobs)then you know you'll never excel at being a wagie.

>>18745078
You are still a child lmao. "what's wrong with me is the void in my heart, but this void clogs up all the holes that would otherwise be there." Give me a fucking break you edgelord.
Stop being a dork and go take molly and go to a rave and make some friends. After all, don't you want to be /lit/ and have actual life experiences? You aren't a pathetic pseud who sits inside all day then blames other people for that, are you?

>>18745128
From what I understand, the kids who are actually vibrant and full of energy are the ones they medicate to settle down these days.

>>18745139
That's a retarded talking point from bitter overly online 20-somethings who are still mad that just being nice doesn't get you laid and just passing college doesn't mean you earn six figures.
Some people get medicated that don't need it, but usually its with Adderall. If you take adderall and don't need it, you do the opposite of settle down.

>>18745128
>>18745124
>>18745103
>people who supossedly like to read dont have even a hint of basic introspection.
you all sound like a confused boomer or like a rotten and ripped to pieces and left out poster in the road that say "be yourself drink aquarius" or else. its sad.

>>18745078
It seems that people missed the point of my post and some even so got angry that they went full reddit on me. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned some of the things in the post.
Anyways, my point was that I feel old, as in feeling the same (or similar) way as some other posters in this thread.

>>18741509
Thank you for your words of encouragement, anon. You give me life.

No I feel more and more like an adolescent every single day. Every feat of maturity I accomplish reinforces this feeling. I'm 25.

yea

>>18742311
I'm 20. Current plans and possibilities:
>Good normie path: get my anthropology degree, get /fitlit/, become either a high school/university professor or some consultant job in marketing and have offspring with a good wife; try to raise my kids properly so they don't end up like this at 20
>Schizo hermit path: get my anthropology degree, get the fuck out and live as a schizo in the mountains in complete solitude; or maybe buy a van and roam the world
>AAAAAAA path: don't get my anthropology degree, live as a failure, wait for my mom to die and then kill myself
The ride never ends and it keeps getting faster

>>18744869
The only help that I need is boypussy.

I’m 25 next month. I feel too old to go on random adventures now. Life seems to be racing by and I haven’t really acquired any skills or made a name for myself. Last year of uni is coming up and I never really salvaged much from the degree yet. This year is important for me, I have a feeling I’ll leave with this humanities degree and teach English abroad or something. It’s a mediocore and banal life path but it’s something I guess

>>18741463
Read Crime and Punishment, faggot.

dumb childs

>>18741463
You're literally me, So far i wrote only 2 novels and both are shit, I'm currently planning my third and it's potentially likely utter shit

>>18741463
Lol I remember this feeling. It will pass in a couple of years. Either it will be clear you're truly this incredible force that will manifest greatness, or much more likely, you're narcissism will start to wane, you'll find your corners to excel in and get satisfaction there, and the adolescent complex to become the next somebody will become nothing more than a barely perceptible bitterness
T. Just turned 30