/lit/ - Literature

Capital by Karl Marx

>>19131415
Read Steppenwolf, it helped me a bit.

The Game
by Niel Strauss

Find a non-consoomer hobby and sublimate your frustrations into creation.

>>19131415
you are meant to discover that purpose yourself, OP. i know the systems rigged and that the masses get the shit end of the stick, and i'm sorry about that. but you need to find something to give your life purpose, or else you fall into self destructive mindsets as the one you currently find yourself in.

Clock Without Hands by Carson McCullers and also The Member of the Wedding by her, but that is more about not having a place to fit in rather than purposelessness.

I hope you can figure things out op :)

you're supposed to like your job enough to care about promotions & raises
what does this have to do with literature
mostly you just have to make your boss happy
I know that sounds stupid, but if you want more money, just do it and read whatever shit makes you happy
you don't have to read shit that is connected to whatever makes your boss happy
think of it this way: you only have to make your boss happy when you're at work
the rest of the time, you can make us happy by telling us what you're reading
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeW_DMV_3Wg

>>19131438
Love that book

>>19131467
But she's proto DFW

>>19131457
I already read a lot. Started going to the gym, trying to play video games less. I'm making positive changes but it still feels futile.
>>19131462
>just gotta cope until you die
Is this really it?

>>19131534
Good one anon but the joke is starting to grate a little now, I would appreciate it if you stopped posting it.

>>19131415
Problem of the puer aeturnus

>>19131427
Actually unironically
>t. libertarian

>>19131549
>Is this really it?
no. it's not cope, you just don't have a sense of direction in life. you seem to have gone through life without ever really thinking about things, and now you find yourself in a position of where you don't know how to proceed because the answer to this isn't readily provided for you. throughout your life you have been told that you will need to go to school to get an education, and an education to get a job. everything you have are things that you have been told you need to do/understand/etc. now you find yourself in a place where the answer is something you're going to have to find out for yourself. this is something none of us can straight up tell you, all we can do is try and push you towards the right direction.

>>19131415
No family and no kids for me
Not really a choice desu
But at least it cuts part of the disappointments

>>19131415
Turn to Jesus

>>19131648
Is there a book for this?

>>19131668
the Bible, most specifically the New Testament.

>>19131620
>Not really a choice desu
Why?

Okay. So you have to start with
1. Essential Writings of Machiavelli (just the first seven books of the Discourses [on Livy])
2. Monadology (just skim it or read the wiki page, you don't have to read it)
3. Candide (read this, and ask yourself what the ending means)
Now Steppenwolfe is this really beautiful rendition of the paradise world, very noble rot, very sweet.
The French sadists appear with the Marquis de Sade.
The English emotivists appear around 1900 or so.
So right around 1930 or so, there is a political divergence. The Egyptian curse of managing the jewish slave population is about to befall Europe, but nobody believes in the power of Pharaoh anymore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ORA1Q08hJo
it's like
you've been through n rounds of priming and cuing for managing the jewish slave population, but at the end of the day, you just can't get "the jews are the slaves" out of your mouth

Think outside the box, OP. You don't HAVE to do any of that shit, it's just a big filter to catch all the dregs who keep society running. If you want freedom, it has a price

>>19131684
Terrible post.
Read The Decline of the West then stop giving a shit about 'self' and 'improvement'.
Just earn, demand and take until it collapses anon, it's the only healthy attitude.

>>19131684
What?

>>19131620
Me too, just got the short stick in the draw and ended up mentally ill and far too solitary to ever meet someone, let alone keep a relation when most girls just want to drink and party, not their fault by the way, they are young and should celebrate life, is just me who was unlucky to be traumatized of interacting with people and raised to be a weak boy, not even a man.

>>19131683
I have phimosis and I’m 5”6

>>19131943
Damn shame. Considered adult circumcision?

>>19131943
Fuck

Hang in there dude. You can do great things

>>19131943
phimosis is a blessing. it kept me from having legitimate sex. i used to hate it but now i'm extremely thankful for it.

>>19132002
nice cope

Accelerate until it becomes socially acceptable to kill rich people and steal their stuff. Then kill the stupid commies and capitalist glowniggers and build the foundation for the fourth Reich. Only then will your childrens' future be secured.

>>19131415
have 20 year olds been asking this question since the beginning of time? such a dumb question.

>>19132018
i could easily stretch it if i wanted to. it's not to that point where it's extreme or anything. i choose not to.

>>19131415
Mein Kampf

>>19131415
I'm a welfare KING who makes the same money living in a trailer park chopping firewood as I would have made in the city working full time for 60k a year.

On rainy days I am building a publishing empire in order to cultivate a new generation of starving artists and based NEETs while growing my cultural and social capital to the utmost. Every day I do the kinds of work that most ivy arts-fags spend 20-30 years grinding in order to do.

Every welfare check I put a bit into stocks or coins. Of course, I also like playing a game of blackjack now and then. Even if I go bust, I always have a trailer full of canned food and bottled water to go back to.

Recently I used my brilliant NEET brain (from spending all day on the internet and reading rather than wageslaving) to come up with a brilliant new invention: ducktaping a hose to a faucet and running it through the rafters of public toilets in order to create a free hot shower wherever I go. I'm currently working on a water-heater prototype that will allow me to have hot water anywhere I can screw in a hose as well. Pretty soon I'll be able to take luxurious hot showers whenever I want, without spending a second cucking out to some bossman.

Oh yeah, and I spend my free time cruising around on my sailboat. Turns out a couple of crab traps will let you eat like a king without spending a dollar.

Whenever I need to sharpen my grindset I always go straight to the ancient greek philosophers:
>Men do indeed speak ill of those occupations which are called handicrafts, and they are rightly held of little repute in communities, because they weaken the bodies of those who make their living at them by compelling them to sit and pass their days indoors. Some indeed work all the time by a fire. But when the body becomes effeminate (thelunomenos) the mind too is debilitated. Besides, these mechanical occupations (banausos) leave a man no leisure to attend to his friends' interests, or the public interest. This class therefore cannot be of much use to his friends or defend his country. Indeed, some states, especially the most warlike, do not allow a citizen to engage in these handicraft occupations

>>19131415

>>19131415
This one:
The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham. It tells the story of an American pilot traumatized by his experiences in World War I, who sets off in search of some transcendent meaning in his life. His rejection of conventional life and search for meaningful experience allows him to thrive while the more materialistic characters suffer reversals of fortune.

>>19131415
>and you fucking KNOW kids born post 2020 are just going to be absolute nightmares
Why? Because you were born in the 90s and will be an absolutely hopeless parent?

>>19132348
Probably, is the natural progression, from boomers onward every generation got worse at parenting and the one who raised the millenials and zoomers is by far the worse so far, so now imagine how bad they will be in general, that is, the few who have children.

>>19132358
My parents are gen x and they were good parents. Their parents were boomers, they were also good parents. Now.. The fathers that came back from WW2. That was a fucked generation of parents, especially the ones with ptsd.

The way things are going to go anon, your post would be describing heaven on earth.

>>19132394
nonsense. heaven on earth is something far greater than the mundane way of life that has been established through the ages.

>>19131415

>>19132684
jew

>>19131415
This is life, this is all life is (unless you are born into the 1% of wealth and thus can actually do things without constantly working to the bone). Your only avenues are to tranquilize yourself through drugs/social media/porn/whatever, or kill yourself.

>>19131549
I mean reading is not creating

>>19132853
>Your only avenues are to tranquilize yourself through drugs/social media/porn/whatever
that's not true at all. there's a lot he can do do make his circumstances better. what is with this extremely nihilistic/self defeating mindset you harbor?

>>19131415
Many of us are in a similar situation. I believe in you

>>19132860
Everything is just a cope for death.

>>19131415
read nietzsche. learn to overcome your nihilism.

You forgot:

>world is almost certainly going to get worse in the coming decades

>>19132888
Becker get ye out

>>19132684
>just have something that makes the suffering worth enduring bro
>just think of your hot gf and kids bro

>>19132919
How do i go full dionysian life mode?

>>19132933
you aren't ready for that yet.

>>19131415
Would going the way of Forest anon be out of the question? If so there's not much you can really do OP besides learn to look forward to the future and find meaning in whatever career you pursue

>>19131549
learn a classical instrument nigger.

>>19132888
There is life after death in Christ.

>>19133257
prove it my boy
>>19132888
genetic death to be specific.

>>19132329
God, I wish that were me

>>19132961
Is it one of those "if you ask, you've already failed" kind of things?

>>19132969
>Would going the way of Forest anon be out of the question?
this but defeatists cant be helped. feeling sorry for themselves gives them a rush of endorphins. you cant reason with them so its best to just nod along and validate their belief that everything sucks

>>19131943
Kek, this person isn't even me and it was so close

>>19131415
Cope. Seriously. This is the civilization you’ve inherited and you’d be a fool to think you can fundamentally change it, but I suppose you have 3 options:
1) Try (and inevitably fail) to fundamentally change it.
2) Fulfill your role regarding the obvious actualization your civilization would have you fulfill. Be the democratic politician, the deal banker, the startup CEO, or the software engineer.
3) Retreat and cope into a subjective world. Leave the city. Make art for yourself. Work for yourself. Fight for yourself. Practice apoliteia, detachment, and non-action. History is filled with writers who wrote precisely as a method of coping, and sometimes that’s the best you can hope for.

>>19133659
no. there's just a lot to learn about yourself and the world first before trying to make such a radical change in your life and way of thinking.

>>19134662
whats there to learn about the world?

>>19134561
>History is filled with writers who wrote precisely as a method of coping, and sometimes that’s the best you can hope for

Name some of them.

>>19134666
the philosophy about reality, about human behavior, it's shortcomings and how to be a higher man, about the loss of meaning in life and the suffering that comes with it. nietzsche speaks on many topics about the world outside of oneself.
i don't know you, anon, but maybe you are just starting yourself out on a path looking to better yourself and find meaning within yourself. this is a good thing. the most important thing, and nietzsche is a great teacher to help guide you. just realize that reaching such a destination doesn't come quickly; it's a journey and there are many things to learn on the road.

>>19131415
Never trying will haunt you more than failing, so try.

>>19134689

not him but the entire history of writing has been cope in some form

A Confession by Leo Tolstoy

>>19134769
Oh yes, im rather a beginner at knowing the world. I feel like life-affirming philosophy is completely different from my mindset.

>>19131415
Cioran

https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran

>>19132074
nah, 20 year olds have not always been locked in this infinite timeless vision of droning bullshit office work. even peasants weren't made to expend the majority of the day working (or, now, commuting to work). things got done when they needed to be done. now there isn't even the light at the end of the tunnel of retirement, now that we see social security as the scam that it is. we will die working, and there is no end in sight. for what? for someone else's profit?

>>19134934
not to mention the intensified state of surveillance. productivity metric reported by algorithms, the inner workers of which even our top engineers claim to not fully understand. human beings have never been more neurotic and afraid to not conform. far from heaven, but also far from hell, it is an internalized liminal temporality of 'going through the motions' without a clear destination in sight.

>>19131415
Oh no, not a whole 40 hours a week!

>>19134689
I’ll give you one that isn’t close to me but is hyper pertinent: Michel Houllebecq. In fact, he alluded to exactly this in his book on HP Lovecraft, who he alleges did more or less the same. Now, obviously writing need not horror or pessimism to fill that role, but it probably exemplifies what I’m talking about in the most obvious way possible. Perhaps you’ll find many many more who simply aren’t as pessimistic and thus aren’t as honest about coping.

>>19134934
>even peasants weren't made to expend the majority of the day working
This is an incredibly naive take on feudal society. Sometimes what "needs to be done" is threshing grain from sunrise to sunset. Yes, they got feast days off and between sowing and harvest there was less to do. But anyone who says they would prefer the life of a pre-modern farmer to that of a cubicle drone is fucking stupid and wouldn't last a week in the fields.

The Courage To Be by Paul Tillich

>>19134903
That's fine, that means you get to find some new ideas :)
You don't have to pursue them, just give them the benefit of the doubt - let them rattle around in your skull a bit.

>>19134790
>Never trying will haunt you more than failing, so try.
Not OP but it was exactly trying that made me blackpilled and suicidal.
I realized that there is nothing you are allowed to do that does not go with the path of least attrition that people are following toward the abyss.
I wanted to make art and my idea of it was that art could create a link between people, and eventually a network, some sort of mutual connection. Art is really powerful when it does that.
But what people actually want it from art is just a consumable snack of the basic life elements that are lacking in their timeline: fear, anger, violence, sex, relief, triumph, sadness. This is why when I lament that nobody cares about my idea of art as a link, sharing what you see through your eyes, people call me pretentious, because they think this is about me, while my desire is for art to do this both ways. I wouldn't be satisfied if this were just about me.
People cannot imagine this network aspect so they just think my idea is to superimpose my vision of life upon others.
So my only role in life as an artist is to give people exactly the kind of thing that I am blaming for the collapse of the world, drug-stimuli. And then if this is the role of art then people who sell porn, horrible violence and other crap like that are the best artists by far, since they give the most raw and carnal things to consumers. I just can't deal with this shit. Consume consume consume, produce then go back home and consume. That's really all there is to life now.
People keep saying that you should find satisfaction in some sort of airtight bubble, doing things autistically for yourself but I sincerely doubt they understand what this means, my suspicion is that they just enjoy the consoomer shit and just talk out of their ass. Nobody can enjoy the quiet while everything else burns, only a crazy person would do that.

>>19135237
What are you attempting to show through this connection? Certainly fear, violence, sadness, etc etc can only be shown effectively in art after such a connection is established. A film or novel that was nothing but violence without context would not be very good.

>>19135237
It's not that it isn't crazy, it's that there's no other alternative to the craziness: we have to believe that solitude is an out for, if we don't, then we are damned to enjoy the company solely of the noose.

>>19131427
YWNBAW

>>19131462
Jones shall worship Jones.

>"Of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within. Any one who knows any body knows how it would work; any one who knows any one from the Higher Thought Centre knows how it does work. That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not the god within. Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners." GKC, Orthodoxy, Chapter 5

>>19135255
>Certainly fear, violence, sadness, etc etc can only be shown effectively in art after such a connection is established.
No, this is not true. In fact when you try establishing a connection you tend to downplay these things because your intent is not to max out on showing those "triggers" for lack of a better word. I'll give you an example with the typical Disney movie where you have a beloved parent figure die not because it's the best narrative but because a dramatic death gets the audience more emotional. You can definitely fabricate these stimuli, and by all means there is an expertise about it, you can be extremely good at writing sappy songs that make people cry, but that has nothing to do with the aspect I was talking about. Of course the distinction on the surface is a bit blurry, in the end human lives are mostly about sadness, fear, victory, loss, violence, anger, hope, etc. but the difference here is sort of when you fuck a hooker vs. when you have intercourse with a person you truly love and hold dear.
Ironically I also sort of feel like this about dating as well, like it's extremely difficult to find that kind of connection because very few people truly want this, or at least they want this while trying casual sex. Just like people are very unlikely to find a true connection or elevate their spirit through snack entertainment. Surely there is a chance that you can tap somewhere into the global human consciousness while you watch Star Wars #13 The Revenge of The Teddy Bears but the chances are slim.

Also another idea that people have is that you can do this, you just have to be absurdly good. People have created this fictional reality where 99.99999% has always been garbage snack consoomshit and then there was that one holy man, one autistic gift from Heaven who went and wrote The Masterpiece, which not only went against the grain is every possible way but also struck the hearts of cynical plebs. This is just bullshit. You need a) standards among the public b) an environment that fosters certain things. Of course only a few things will be of extremely high quality but the truth about masterpieces is that they brewed in fertile environments, and were presented to a public who was more receptive to new and daring things. If the public's default reaction is to shoot down everything that is not yet another telegraphed consumer product with the same beats and hitting the same mental checkpoints at the expected time, you won't have a chance to do anything different and that "masterpiece" in general will never happen. People hate hearing about this and they insist that true art should be made by these saint-autists who immolate themselves to create The Masterpiece, which will be of course ignored until 1000 years afterwards. At this point this requires the same amount of blind devotion as converting to Christianity except the deal you get from Christianity is that you go to heaven, whereas with "art" you get a Netflix adaptation.

>>19135237
After reading this you should have killed yourself. What a fucking loser mindset.

>>19135461
So what exactly are you trying to do with your art? That's the part I was most interested in hearing

>>19135237
Nice to see you again my fellow sufferer. I have took another screenshot of your post. Everything to say is like you're touching my very feels. During long hours of death contemplation I read your posts sometimes along with other posts which I have collected on /lit/. All of it make me feel less alone. But pain never goes away.

Have you read Cioran? He was the philosopher of failure who had thing for disappointments and though this ppath he became what he wanted to, a NEET who never worked in his life. Pick up his books of aphorisms sometime. I am currently reading Drawn and Quartered and I am sure an artist like you could squeeze out much more depth than me.

>>19131940
You’re making excuses for yourself. Yeah you had a bad childhood or bad genes, many people do and still manage to live fulfilling lives. Get on your ass and start doing stuff

>>19131415
Ecce Homo

>>19135237
>>19135511
Also why you don't share your artwork and writings with us? What are you afraid. I know it is good for your artistic career to be associated with 4chan. But after utter rejection you should try this. There is writing general and you can check out /ic/ too.

>>19135530
*it is not good

>>19132933
Take drugs, particularly psychedelics.

>>19135496
>So what exactly are you trying to do with your art?
Right now? Nothing. I've always made personal things that I hoped to share. Nobody seems interested at all, although they had nothing negative to say about the execution etc. My issue has never been technical, not in the sense that what I do is perfect but in the sense that the technical aspect really doesn't matter.
I don't really know what to do with art and in all honesty this is literally killing me. I'm ruining my health over it because I care about it so much, it's all my life but I just think there's no point. Every time I raise this subject people dodge it like this, they say
>You are supposed to do it because you like it
Which I do, of course. I also like sex but sex has always been subordinate to love to me. I've never wanted to have sex with people I didn't have genuine feelings for. Maybe this is a bit of a cringeworthy parallel but it's really how I feel about art. I love art and I love making things but they are supposed to fulfill this greater need that I have, which today seems to be completely absent from the scene.
Or they say >>19135480
>What a fucking loser mindset.
Which I don't get. This only makes sense from the point of view of the consumer who's like "hey this guy should be motivated, I get to have another thing on my catalogue". Again why should I bother producing for people who tell me to kill myself if I don't bitch down and do what the consumers say? To me this is the same as quitting. I have trouble with this because I see it as the ultimate defeat so I think these people can't even understand what I am talking about.
>>19135530
It's not productive at all because not only I'd get empty encouragement that ultimately means nothing but it would also turn the whole discussion about my specific case. I think this is as broader issue than myself.
>But after utter rejection you should try this.
It's not just rejection, like seeing that people are largely uninterested despite praising things, it's also an environmental issue that I have. Guess I could boil it down to "I'm demotivated" but it's far deeper than that, when I make contact with the environment and start running the rat race I feel this terrible discomfort, like I'm becoming poisoned by it. And my work suffers in turn, I stop putting effort in it. Ironically I work harder after I give up.
>>19135511
>Have you read Cioran?
I haven't. I admit I've tried other paths but every time I come back crawling to art because this is what I want to do and there's nothing else I think about.

>>19135114
yes, parrot someone else's idea about how naive it is to think this way. what the fuck do you know more about farm work than anyone else? have you ever had a real job in your life? sit in your office and stay depressed, wagie faggot

>>19135585
I feel like you are being evasive here. Saying that you want to make "personal" art is like saying you want to open a restaurant that serves good food. What does "personal" mean, in your case? How do you intend to establish a connection with people, and what do you intend to say when you do? If you truly don't know, perhaps you're not saying much of anything and that's why there's no real interest.

>>19135632
>yes, parrot someone else's idea
Ironically this is the exactly what all you RETVRN faggots are doing

>>19135237
>Nobody can enjoy the quiet while everything else burns, only a crazy person would do that.

>>19135114
You don't know what it was like either, so why talk out of your ass?

>>19135725
Forest anon doesn't have the idea of making art though. Listen, I understand that what I think is stupid, but you can't expect every man's thoughts to converge to the same ideal. If you can find satisfaction in simple living and living in the forest, that's great for you. There are people who can't do it, or simply wouldn't be satisfied doing it. Not everyone is attuned the same way, this is part of what makes everyone so stressed about modern life where you are expected to like the same things and be the same person as everyone else. I think conflating this idea that certain thoughts are wiser or better with the assumption that everyone should be the exact same person is stupid.
>>19135679
>What does "personal" mean, in your case?
Just work that I like. By personal I mean that I don't want to make things in function of what art is supposed to fulfill today, just stimuli on demand. I don't want to think "I need to change this now because otherwise this would be suboptimal art if you look at art as stimuli on demand." I think it's puerile. I don't like it. If you ask a painter what he wants to do he can only answer that he wants to paint what he likes. I don't want to do revolutionary things or pretend I'm going to break new ground, this is probably also why I think I have no chance of really achieving anything, because the only way I would be allowed to do this is by "breaking new ground" like inventing some sort of gimmick. I have a bunch of themes I like and a bunch of stories to tell but I know I would have to change so much shit it would be pointless to try.

Also I admit that this whole thing has evolved into something much worse, I'm questioning the meaning of art itself, if art ever did elevate people in spirit. Maybe when I looked at the things that inspired me I was just having the right thoughts at the right moment while watching a slightly better version of Star Wars #12 The Revenge of the Teddy Bears. Maybe it's all the same and all useless just the same and my favoring certain art over other art is just my personal bias. But then I would have to discard art altogether because I simply do not like what art has become today. If it's all the same then I do not like art.

>>19131415

>>19135811
And when I said it's pointless to try I didn't mean that I haven't tried. I have sunk a lot of energy in this and being in direct contact with the environment was extremely taxing on me. I hate that this kind of thing needs to be carried out entirely through the internet which as far as I'm concerned is a river soaked in venom. I was willing to bathe in it for a long time and I got nothing out of it, so now that I am still making things I do not want to take another dip. I honestly think it might lead me to off myself because I really hate the public internet.

>>19135811
How old are you bro

>>19135837
Starting to get old. This is another problem, I burned literally all my 20s slamming my head against this wall while I got less and less motivated. At this point I don't believe in it and I think that I'm completely out of the picture not only in terms of my work being outdated but being outdated as a person in general. I just can't understand the world anymore, I feel like I'm way out of it mentally.
Now I'm early 30s and I don't have the same energy. Health has been getting worse. I know that I could start over and build myself another life doing something else and even be successful at it because outside of this shit I am resourceful and I am capable of achieving things quickly. But I'd be unhappy. I'd be unhappy in the forest, I'd be unhappy working an office job, I'd be unhappy winning the lottery. When I had a taste of another life I just wanted to run away. If I can't just live off this work and in the end my live will be just entertaining myself with products until I die I just want to sleep it all away. I've been feeling completely directionless for a few years now.

>>19135822
I may be judging a book by its cover... but hell no, not having goals is one of the worst things you can do.

If anything, the problem of purposelessness can be solved by having goals and a long standing mission from which these derive.

>>19135811
>Forest anon doesn't have the idea of making art though
forestanon won an art scholarship but didn't pursue it. in one of those livestreams he said he liked making it for himself and knew making a job out of it would feel like a perversion or something like that. but my point with that post was that life is all about learning to enjoy the quiet while everything else burns because letting it effect you this much when you can't change anything is arguably even crazier because in a way you're just expecting everything else to live up to your standards and becoming unhappy that it doesn't

>>19135237
>what people actually want it from art is just a consumable snack of the basic life elements that are lacking in their timeline: fear, anger, violence, sex, relief, triumph, sadness.
>I wanted to make art and my idea of it was that art could create a link between people

how ironic that you just want art to provide friendship or something for you, lmao

>>19135938
And how do you get to enjoy the quiet? I don't have the health to live off the grid and hide from the authorities like a criminal all the time.
The only thing that keeps me alive is work. I cannot think myself out of this mindset, all I can do to feel at ease is work until I'm too tired to think. I believe in keeping myself busy as a way to make it through life with dignity, but there's only one thing I am willing to work this hard for, and I'm not allowed to. My life would become about a shitty "job" I hate in order to come back home and do more pointless work for work's sake, not toward any goal or anything, to distract myself before the next day. It's a nightmare, I don't want to live like this.

>>19135968
What does communion and understanding with the rest of the world have to do with lizard brain catharsis? Even if I were being petty I don't see how this is a parallel.

>>19135938
He said he only won it because his art teacher wanted him too but by that time he was already seeing it as just a tool for self expression and not something feasible one should make a career out of, which is similar to some of what OP has been saying. But I agree with your last statement that OP needs to just suck it up and stop being a bitch.

>>19135973
>And how do you get to enjoy the quiet?
read the stoics

>>19136039
the stoics would kill themselves if they were forced to live in these times.

>>19135811
>If you ask a painter what he wants to do he can only answer that he wants to paint what he likes
I don't think this is true at all. I was going to elaborate with a long personal anecdote but I honestly don't see the point anymore. Instead I'll just say that I've always done my best work when I have some idea of what I'm trying to do instead of just doing what I like or whatever. Having a goal around which to focus your efforts is a good thing, and it doesn't have to be a compromise with some imagined audience.

>>19135874
Shit....

>>19135973
What is wrong with your health? Are you from upper class?

>>19136063
>Instead I'll just say that I've always done my best work when I have some idea of what I'm trying to do instead of just doing what I like or whatever.
That's what I meant, really. There are always things that you are driven to do, you just don't want to "just paint". If someone's chiseling a piece of wood he needs to have something in mind. Ideally it's something he loves. The problem is when you ask this man to stop chiseling wood and start molding plastic to make dildos. How do you still think you're carving?

>>19136044
Epictetus was literally a slave

>>19136100
Genetic disease. Not too crippling but enough so to prevent any kind of wild living. Otherwise I would have done something along those lines. I think I'd have done something like get a trailer and live like a nomad doing odd jobs. I'm basically poor, used to be low mid class. No savings. Dropped out of education when I figured out that I was headed toward a life I didn't want. I really don't want to switch to another plan and get myself a "career". People keep telling me why don't you do this, why don't you do that. They get really mad that I have the skills to access some very decent jobs but I don't care and no amount of meds or talking it out ever changed my mind, I think if I have to live a life like this I see no point. I'm not gonna get married or have kids, I only have this work I want to do but it's work that nobody wants or needs.

>>19135237
You want to combine your personal passion and view for the art while also touching others.
Others, unfortunately, want stupid things. Am I getting you right? What other people want seems incompatible with delivering a deeper, more meaningful product while still seeing to your own vision.

>>19136162
Better a slave in ancient Greece than a free citizen today. What are you even looking forward to? Slaves back then could earn their freedom.

>>19136162
>>19136183
would he have been a mcdonalds fry cook in modern times?

>>19136190
Top kek

>>19136190
No, he would have been a Mexican, toiling away at train construction.

>>19136163
Anon start reading Cioran, he ain't no hack. He will simply give you the Truth and pride in its acceptance.

>>19136183
This is the most retarded thing I've read in this whole entire retarded thread.
>>19135973
>>19136163
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

>>19131438
>>19131684
>>19132345
>>19134814
The only good answers in this thread. Read Steppenwolf anon

>>19135725
Lmfao

>>19136171
Yeah pretty much, but I lament the state of things in general. It's not just about me but the fact that nobody really seems to be working on anything in this spirit anymore. I think this is the same reason why religion died. It's become too difficult to reach out to people. It's even hard to think of them as people when you're making something, you have to think of them as consumers, like a bunch of wild animals that you throw meat to.
I know this is a hypocritical thing to say because I should be the one who breaks the cycle and acts like the hopeless idealist I want the world to be, but this is exactly why I lament it so much, I think people are a product of their environment and everything today is absurdly corrupt. The only way to escape this influence is to completely detach oneself from society but again, not everyone can do this. You can't expect all men who are unhappy with the state of things to become hermits.
I don't like getting in this argument because people assume I want to be right about these things, I would like someone to tell me that things are not as I believe and something can be done, that I am being overly cynical and the world is still worth participating to. It's just that everything is so goddamn ugly. People, the world outside, everything has become so terribly ugly that I don't even want to give anything to it because I no longer feel like I would plant a good seed into this environment, but no the contrary let this environment poison the few good seeds I have.
This might be a turning point, maybe I am on my way to think in terms of protecting these good things from hostile influences but I think this will lead me to death because this poisoned terrain is encroaching my private space every day and necessity will eventually open the doors to it. Being able to work and live off of it could have kept this all at bay but it was probably too good to have.
>>19136217
I'll do it.
>>19136232
I don't know what feeling sorry for myself means here. Someone asked questions and I answered. My situation is overall decent and I could have another life if I wanted. I'm not feeling sorry for myself, I just don't know how to escape the paradox of only being able to find happiness in achieving something I cannot achieve. It's self-inflicted and it's stupid, I know.

>>19135725
ive been trying to find the forestanon wojak with the mouse eating food on his head if you have that one

>>19136255
Bro keep spew shit out on the world. This unironically a good way to live. When you will stop spewing your work you will go mad. If you don't want to give world the beauty of your artworl you should vomit out the bile that you have gathered out on a paper or a canvas. This is how people Celine, Thomas Bernhard, Kafka, Cioran etc. coped with existence. Your were fated to be an artist.

>Rank asked why the artist so often avoids clinical neurosis when he is so much a candidate for it because of his vivid imagination, his openness to the finest and broadest aspects of experience, his isolation from the cultural world-view that satisfies everyone else. The answer is that he takes in the world, but instead of being oppressed by it he reworks it in his own personality and recreates it in the work of art. The neurotic is precisely the one who cannot create—the “artiste-manque,” as Rank so aptly called him. We might say that both the artist and the neurotic bite off more than they can chew, but the artist spews it back out again and chews it over in an objectified way, as an external, active, work project. The neurotic can’t marshal this creative response embodied in a specific work, and so he chokes on his introversions. The artist has similar large-scale introversions, but he uses them as material.

Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

>>19136109
>>19136255
Why must you make a living from it? Why not make the art you want to make for a small audience?

>>19136314
>If you don't want to give world the beauty of your artwork you should vomit out the bile
I've ended up doing this for a bit then pulled back because I didn't like what I was doing. I'd rather have done the good things.
But yeah the bile is probably something I could keep throwing out. Maybe it's what I really have to do.
>Why must you make a living from it?
That's just about having time to do what I want. I'm OK with living in absolute poverty. I just can't eat air and my energy is limited because I'm sickly. When I have a job I just come back home and sleep because I'm too tired. It terrifies me to be stuck doing this for the rest of my life. If I am driven to do something I'm the kind of person who works obsessively for 20 hours in a row. In my best years I had to set up reminders to stop working instead of the other way around. Now I just torture myself trying to find a reason to work or quit. I hate being in this state.

>>19131415
find something or someone to love.

>>19131549
>I already read a lot
that is still a consoomer hobby

>>19136381
>Maybe it's what I really have to do.
Bro you have to vomit that shit out. It's like a cancer that needs to be cut out.

>>19136399
Yeah. Maybe this is the way. Although I will still have to face the scenario in >>19136381 so I doubt know if it will make any difference in the long run.

>>19136437
This is the one thing where you have to lose your identity and perform the task of a shit flinging machine which throw back whatever the shit thrown on it. You can even use pseudonym or something like it. Both beauty and absurdity can exist(see: Fernando Pessoa). Stop beating yourself over being a contradiction. Cioran says that contradictions mean that we're alive. You need to break free of your rationalist framework. Surround yourself with these thinkers.

>>19136459
Thanks. I'm happy I have thrown this rant out yet another time. I have read a few of the authors mentioned but I'll make sure to read Cioran. One lucky thing about myself is that I only need a little push to change things in my life and get started again for 1-2 years before the next crisis, so I hope this will be it.

>>19131438
That dream/fantasy of killing people on the road or whatever is the only interesting part in that teen angst pulp fiction.

>>19136255
people are doing it, everywhere.
You are not alone, not nearly.
I remember this book /sffg/ keeps recommending which I read. The main protagonist is an executioner, traveling from town to town and chopping heads. In the end he becomes the god emperor or something, but I hardly remember now.
Anyhow, He said something along the lines of:
"In execution you are a slave, to three masters. First, the crowd, who are eager for blood. They would like a splatter, a roll of the head. Second, the patrons - those who come before the execution, bearing whispers, demands and gold, either to make the cut a quick one, or to make one cut several. Finally, the executioner himself. For in every execution an executioner must show his own hand, whether by the tense holding of the sword, the glint of the sun, or the precise, perfect, cut."
art is not a simple business. Back in the day, we had definite patrons and a definite art style, and that field was a rather wide one to plant our feet in. Today the field have widened, yet the footing narrowed. It seems that to be an artist one must deliver impactful, meaningful punches. the consumer has found a new product, that of meaning, and the consumer wants to get high. Very high. There are ten million shows going at once, and the crowd will leave, instantly, if you don't produce the exact thing it desires.
"but sir," said the doctor to the cop, "My business is giving the patients what they don't want!"
Have you ever tried zen? I think a good option for you would be to accept that this is reality, and you may not be able to change it.

>>19136571
That's the Book of the new sun.

>>19135511
>Have you read Cioran?
You want OP to rope?

>>19136255
The vision will never become manifest. Your need cannot be sated because that which you crave cannot be. It's an ideal. A perfect creation containing all the meaning that we were promised, but that was never there. In fact, there never was a meaning. Meaning is a beautiful mirage that vanishes at our approach, empty sand and warm winds. You say that you want your art to connect people, but i think that what your really want is to understand and be understood yourself. Do you really think that anything you create will save you? Because it won't. That sense of isolation you carry isn't a curse to be dispelled with some great act of redemption. It's as much of a part of you as your memories, your personality or your skills. Just accept your lot in life and think about what you can do to keep on going. The other anons in the thread were right about the bile. Paint, write or sing it out into the world. It deserves every bit of it and more, and perhaps some other sufferer will look at it and feel a little bit less alone. It is at least a better escape than the alternatives.
People weren't made to be fulfilled or happy. We were made to survive and breed in a world full of suffering, with no consideration for a world in which we wouldn't have to. Evolution works on a "good enough" basis, and thus we require the conditions for which we evolved to function. Take those away and we suffer. It's a contradiction wrought by the devil himself, one that ensures that we will never experience true satisfaction.
Or perhaps i'm just as lost as you are, without any of the answers you so crave. Perhaps my view of the world is as warped by my own pathology as yours, and there exists a cure for our existential dread just outside our view.

If so i hope it arrives soon

>>19136588
yes!
very good paragraph, every time someone struggles with art being for the artist and the audience I recall it. Unfortunately I did not understand a damn thing of the rest of the book so I didn't continue in the series

>>19135511
Yes read cioran op he's the real deal along with ug, enjoy

>>19136595
I'm not OP I chimed in randomly
>>19136609
You are probably right about this too. I probably demand too much from art and I should just accept it to be my venting outlet. My favorite artists fall in this category so it makes sense that I should keep it that way.

>>19136530
Anon, you should read Tolstoy's What is Art? It seems like you've come to a similar conclusion to his. I read this a couple weeks ago, and it's made me begin to question the value of most art in ways I never thought to do before.

>>19136931
I've read a bunch of Tolstoy's essays. I think I know what he'll say, I'm not sure if I'll like it.

Rational Male

Rollo Tomassi

>>19137006
His definition of art is that which transmits emotions experienced by the artist to an audience. His understanding of the purpose of art was that it should promote brotherhood among all people, since the necessity for brotherhood, unity and love is the religious perception of our time which will guide humanity into a better future. This is my understanding of his thesis. That's why What is Art came to mind when I read your post.

As far as his ideas of how to judge art--both its form and its subject matter--yeah, you probably wouldn't like it, because most people wouldn't. His opinions were radical; he shits on a huge number of almost universally beloved artists and works. Personally I was amazed to read a scathing critique of Beethoven's late work by one of my favorite artists. I liked how unreserved his criticisms were, even if I didn't agree with all of them.

>>19137159
If that's what he says then this is exactly how I've always felt about art. I think this is the natural state of someone who is drawn to art without the accessory temptations (fame, money, etc.) I can't think of another motive to be passionate about art if not that purpose and this is why I didn't want to make "bile" when it started coming out of me.
I keep going back to Tolstoy lol, he expresses a lot of concepts in other essays that might as well been written by me. I swear that the way he navigates his thinking is very similar to mine, although he's obviously more well-adjusted. I think I might agree on the scathing critique part as well because I have similar views on many popular works.

>>19137232
I would recommend the book then. It's a relatively quick read, especially because it's very repetitive. There were many passages that I felt clarified and put into words feelings I barely knew I had.

I suppose I should add that it's somewhat depressing, though, because in many ways the world has gone a very different direction from the one Tolstoy hoped for and seemed to be predicting. I was also disturbed by his dismissal of works of art I've always held in high regard, but that's part of what I liked about it. His radical opinions gave me permission to question the worth of things I've always loved.

>>19137494
Will do. Reading has given me some relief. I'm glad I started lurking this board eventually.

>>19135237
> Nobody can enjoy the quiet while everything else burns, only a crazy person would do that.
Better to be mad with the rest of the world than sane alone.

>>19135554
Ah, so become Connor Murphy.

>>19131869
Are you advocating the hobo pill?

>>19131457
LE CREATOOOOOR

>>19132329
based sailboat neet king, I’ve read your posts before

>>19132329
Based NEETking

>>19135874
As a failed philosopher in his 30s writing from a Third World colonial district - I feel your feels. Many of us do, since the current world order is objectively and truly fucked up.
Now that you know your calling and can't just merge back into the impersonal Them, the Joneses, or in your case the mechanistic schlock producers of Porn Wars: Revenge of the Crocodile. The only thing I can offer you though is to take stratagem 36, since there is a true audience for you - it is just occulted and dispersed by the planetary regimes.

It feels the same way overhere, I could just sell my soul away by parroting either globalist or internationalist propaganda in an NGO fighting for gender studies in Albania on a cushy bullshit job instead of shitposting while not working for 400 usd a month.
I remember trying into braindead mobile games production, but I was getting progressively braindead myself from whoring away to the consoom-industrial complex.

>>19140146
For a long time I tried to imagine that it might have been possible to find other people who are dispersed and form some sort of group. From this kind of thing you can usually get something started on a larger scale, but even in the worst case scenario it would have been something to lean onto as things get more dire. But I've never had any success so I've resigned that I'll have to walk alone. I doubt I will ever manage to find an audience, I have to do this as a purely private thing and abandon all these ideas that I should impact the world.

>>19136255
"Writing for money and preservation of copyright are, at bottom, the ruin of literature. It is only the man who writes absolutely for the sake of the subject that writes anything worth writing. What an inestimable advantage it would be, if, in every branch of literature, there existed only a few but excellent books! This can never come to pass so long as money is to be made by writing. It seems as if money lay under a curse, for every author deteriorates directly he writes in any way for the sake of money. The best works of great men all come from the time when they had to write either for nothing or for very little pay. This is confirmed by the Spanish proverb: honra y provecho no caben en un saco (Honour and money are not to be found in the same purse). The deplorable condition of the literature of to-day, both in Germany and other countries, is due to the fact that books are written for the sake of earning money. Every one who is in want of money sits down and writes a book, and the public is stupid enough to buy it. The secondary effect of this is the ruin of language" Schopenhauer Essay On Authorship and Style. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11945/11945-h/11945-h.htm#link2H_4_0004

>>19131415
Sounds like you need an obsession. Most people who are happy have an irrational obsession with a specific thing even if it's a fucking stamps collection. Otherwise, you will just idle around like most people. Some people have fun idling around(relative to baseline) and others don't. Most people who underperform vs baseline have an anxiety disorder or related or otherwise overthink everything and attribute too much value to random noise.

>>19141743
Good thing I'm not doing anything for money since that is not my motive, but only one unpleasant aside in order to keep doing something I love. If Schopenhauer thinks that making any money will soil one's honor then he can go suck a cock. People born rich are mentally ill.

>>19142191
He says a poet should have a dayjob. I think he says they should be a watchmaker as an example. Can't find it right now.

>>19131415
reject wage slavery. i'm in the military, once i get out i'll become a mercenary.
working for a company like constellis group can get you $1k a day for certain deployments,
and for the majority of the year you're at home doing whatever you want.
i save money by living in a van and traveling in my downtime.

the only things worth doing in this world are creating and exploring.
when i get too old and busted up to kill poor people, i'll spend my savings on a small alaskan cabin and have a few kids.
live off savings, maybe make a few extra bucks on stolen credit cards.
all my time will be spent with my kids, enjoying the great outdoors and teaching them how to function independently of the system.

your other option is to become a legend like caesar or da vinci. your life may be harder but your contribution to humanity will make you a legend for as long as our species exists.

>>19131438

>>19131438
how does it help?

>>19131438

I used to cite Steppenwolf as my favourite book when I was younger. The only way it really helps is the "literally me" factor.

Introverted loser types just want to relate usually. But beyond that you start to realise that these kind of books offer nothing else if all you are doing is reading to get to that next passage that is LITERALLY you. What lasting impact do they have? I guess being able to relate is something but in terms of bringing about a lasting shift in mindset? Unlikely.

I would also suggest it is unlikely that OP will meet some kooky jailbait to do psychedelics and have orgies with.

>>19132923
>>world is almost certainly going to get worse in the coming decades


It is - definitely. Our quality of life is going to be likely worse than when our parents were children. HOWEVER, you will still have to be alive for that - so you will still have to find something to do and some sort of purpose.

I think people almost expect the world to explode and either they genuinely believe this or they tell it to themselves to absolve themselves of responsibility for their own lives (i.e. what's the point of working towards anything if the world is going to shit?). But guess what - the world will go to shit and you will still be alive. Unless you an hero, you will still need something to occupy your days so you better head in some sort of direction now because the world will still be here in 20 years and you will wish that you had picked SOMETHING.

>>19133257
I wish this were true so badly, but when I think about it I just see that it's the last refuge after I've given up on everything else, it's pathetic. Life is just irredeemably bleak.

>>19131427
Came here to post this and was pleasantly surprised to see it was FPBP

>>19144824
What about socialists forgetting about the workers?

>>19144824
>>19144947
Ideology is inherently bourgeois: it trends more so per ideology each crisis.
Only praxis is proletarian.

Quick question cuz, is "socialism" an ideology?

>>19144947
Happy to engage with you, but before we go further, is this a criticism of the CPSU, the CPC, or the DSA/AOC's Tax the Rich Dress?

For my own part, I'm a member of Marxist party (non-US) and nobody in my party has "abandoned the workers". I would contend that any notionally socialist party that has "abandoned the workers" fucking sucks.

>>19144970
Well I dunno about socialism, but
>Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.
t. Garl Margs

>>19131415
I have the same feel. Well I tell you my friend, do you care about the problems of ants? Are you worried about your ant colony getting flooded when it rains? No, because you are not an ant, and you do not live in an ant colony. So why do you care about the problems of the normal man if you are a schizoretard yourself? You are a different stock, do what you want. You are free to leave at any moment. Why do you worry about things when you can just sit under the Sun with a retard smile watching bees frolic around flowes? Toxic phosphor lights and rat races won't bother you there. Be free. Social pressure is an existential carousel of mirrors to keep you unhappy and live like a rat.

>>19132329
I would follow you into battle, NEETking. I wanna live like you. Grant us crabs, our liege, grant us crabs.

>>19144974
What about workers problems being switched to race, gender and wokeism in general? Doesnt it let people to pat themselves on a shoulder for taking a part in prostesting the authority but at the same time supporting capitalist corpos who change their logo into more "appropriate" to milk the money out of people? How come socialists dont see it through?

>>19146054
The only people who actually like that woke capitalism shit are neoliberals

Can any commie enlighten me as to how you are going to get the "good people" to represent you rather than the "bad people" who tend to reach the top in all other systems, due to their underhanded advantage and commitment?
What is in place to prevent the occurance? You have the no true communists en masse to show your ideology unsustainable in it's purity. You distinguish yourself but how do you expect the common man to distinguish you?

>>19144625
>guess what - the world will go to shit and you will still be alive. Unless you an hero
So far this seems the only sane thing to do.

>>19143001
>your other option is to become a legend like caesar or da vinci. your life may be harder but your contribution to humanity will make you a legend
this is factually impossible, you can only become anything if you fit into the way "talent" is produced today. There is no point creating anything.

>>19146364
There is, it just has to be creative. Not derivative. You have to want to be the first "you", not the next "your idol". You need to set terms that haven't been set, not conform to existing niches that have already been filled.

>>19146556
What I mean is that being creative today is a guarantee of failure. Everything needs to perfectly fit a mold or it is instantly filtered out.

>>19146692
>Everything needs to perfectly fit a mold or it is instantly filtered out
What? It has never been easier to get a work of art out to a wide audience. There are even publishers whose whole business model is publishing subversive or otherwise uncommercial material.

>>19131943
Is phimosis a big deal? I found out I had it, snip-snipped it away, and never thought of it again.
I'm 1,84m, however.

>>19146751
Even 1000 years ago you could roll up a piece of parchment into a bottle and throw it in the sea, the difference here is that people didn't bother doing useless things before. Without "marketing" you don't exist. The internet as a whole has shrunk to a handful of crowded sites, if you cannot "market" what you are doing it simply won't exist. Feel free to link me to these publishers who deal in "other" material although I imagine what it's going to be.

>>19146692
I disagree. You're probably stuck in the mainstream or the alternative mainstream dichotomy and are unwilling to look beyond that, or incapable of true creation, but there are subcultures everywhere.
Likely you are afraid of the potential social stigma of sharing your true beliefs or creative agency and believe you must compromise with existing norms to do so but if you can overcome that fear the world will be yours for the taking. You're a self fulfilling prophecy looking for an excuse not to try.

>>19146794
>You're probably stuck in the mainstream or the alternative mainstream dichotomy and are unwilling to look beyond that
It was specifically when I stopped doing derivative work that I realized what I said. Link me to these different things that are apparently thriving.

>>19146785
>The internet as a whole has shrunk to a handful of crowded sites
Those sites are conglomerates.
You want instant success. You want immediate results. You see the top and want to go straight there. You don't understand that what sits at the surface bubbled up from underground. You are a scared man looking for an easy shortcut.

i'm genuinely surprised this thread is still going.

>>19146802
Listen, maybe it's different for literature but as far as art is concerned you have basically two options: know people who run a gallery or can pull strings or the internet. On the internet nobody will see your work anywhere unless you reach out via social media, in some way. And there are thousands and thousands of people doing that at the same time. So many that this is no longer a matter of making work that stands out or whatever but having contacts and other assets that allow you to grow inorganically. It's simply false that "it's never been easier to reach an audience" you can't even get to new sites from search engines anymore.

>>19146836
You're a dimwit. How many even renowned artists have you heard of that weren't appreciated in their time? You think only the artists you've heard of existed before, seemingly unaware that the ones you didn't hear of and will never hear of existed too, but they do not "exist" because they were lost. You see what's on the surface and think what you cannot see did not exist.
If you wish to share your art why not post it on this imageboard? If the competition is fierce then why do you deserve to win? Maybe it's just not your area of expertise. Effort can only get you so far, and you don't seem to have the correct mindset. You seem to lack passion for the craft and think your passion for the recognition is equatable.

>>19146868
>You are supposed to wear yourself out and die penniless for "the art"
Majority of the great art in the past was made by people who were rich or had patrons who sustained them, and an environment that fostered the production of good art. Art has always been a trade, this shit has always been a trade. When there were people who died penniless to pursue art, this was the end result of their struggle and not the foundation of it.
You are an entitled idiot and this is why the future of culture will be only garbage.
You didn't read my previous posts either because I have covered this.
Then you talk about "winning", why do you use this term? I never said anything about getting to the "top", this is a matter of getting your message in a bottle to actually land anywhere. But if you really want to look at it as a competition, then why should I participate at all if the system is rigged? You don't get exposure through the quality or identity of your work but other factors that have nothing to do with art. And everything you do is filtered a priori so if you make anything different you're pretty much ensured that you won't get anywhere, square one forever.
You still haven't linked me the thriving creative environment you were talking about.
And honestly I already know you have no fucking clue of what you're talking about because you're just a gaslighting agent of this fucked up system of retards and you're assmad that I'm shoving this truth in your face: people who are driven toward art can still fucking quit. They will torture themselves and eventually pursue something else if the odds are impossible and there is no environment. You expect every passionate person to be a suicidal schizo a-la Van Gogh when this is a very new development that marked the beginning of the end of the arts. You hate admitting this so you lash out when someone gives up.
By the way I am constantly making shit, I will never quit actually making art no matter how rarely I'll do it, but God knows I'll make sure none of it will survive me. You gave me nothing but this shit all my life, I'll give you nothing back.

>>19144550
I also had a “woah he’s literally me” reaction to Steppenwolf. It changed my mindset to be more outgoing and enjoy the simpler pleasures in life rather than focusing so much on my autistic literature/philosophy related interests. Granted, I read it only 6 months ago, so you may be right about it not having a long lasting impact. But I certainly know it has impacted me today

LEFTISM

DOES

NOT

WORK

>>19146917
>Majority of the great art in the past was made by people who were rich or had patrons who sustained them
Yes. After they demonstrated their value. They proved their worth and thus earned patronage. Once again you see only the top without recognition of the bottom. The reward and not the struggle.
The irony of calling me entitled. You have it so much better than those who came before you and it's still not good enough for you.

>>19131549
You feel unfulfilled because you’re subjugating your individuality to some universal “self-improvement.” Why do you think that lifting, reading, and other activities are what YOU need? Lifting is neither good nor bad. Video games are neither good nor bad. You must exert your own will rather than subjugating it to the wills of some reddit-tier self improvement meme. And I’m saying this as someone whose primary hobbies are lifting and reading. Perhaps this reply isn’t helpful. But no reply here can be. You must figure things out for yourself rather than asking others on an Indonesian underwater funko pop collecting forum

>>19146956
>They proved their worth
They proved their worth to their respective patrons who were people who valued art, not a largely uninterested army of porn addicted 16 year olds who sit with their mouth agape for someone to chuck a new product in. Can you please link me to the exciting creative environment that you mentioned? I would be so happy to see it. I cannot wait to be proven wrong, you know, this is exactly why I keep engaging with people like you even though I know that you don't know shit. I know the bottom very well, I've seen the whole base of the pyramid. Link me or give me names or shut the fuck up.

>>19136295

>>19146981
I'm not the guy who mentioned that pal. My first post is >>19146794, unless you count >>19146141 which is unrelated.
You are proving it again. Only seeing what you see, the "porn addicted 16 year olds" who you seem to think represent an entire generation. Blind to the fact that you're not thinking about the things you don't see. The people who aren't talking, that because you do not hear from, you think do not exist. Blind to the fact that those porn addicted 16 year olds are desperate for a semblance of purpose in their lives. That they feel maligned by society. They want something new. I'm afraid you do not have the capacity to be creative. To think about what you cannot see. You are a derivative being. Give up.

>>19147033
Give me examples that show me how you can organically get anywhere in these times where "it's never been easier" or shut the fuck up. If it's so easy to reach people you surely have lots of examples of obscure artists who got to you through obscure channels.

>>19147033

>>19147046
The meme masters

>>19146981
>Exciting creative products
לחם וניצה, אירוח טיפ
Sorry, you'll have to watch with subs on. This is not something elitistic, it's literally gay humor, but I found it to be brilliant. Lovely sketch, shows understanding of people

>>19136295
>>19147006

>>19147084
v=ypRCR9G7Tbk on YouTube in case you can't find it.

>>19147064
When did you take this picture? I was told there would be no pictures.

>>19147084
>it's literally gay humor
wow very obscure
I'm done. I have bills to pay so i can't waste time.

>>19147132
Oh sorry. I guess only the high society for you. Here I thought that a short sketch that both is targeted to an audience you seem to dislike yet focusing on social humor and writing might be a way for you to see how things can still be done. I don't think I've seen sketches that made me actually relate to the characters like this one for years, despite the sloppy bits.

>>19138557
How does that follow? Not everyone is predisposed to schizophrenia

>>19147115
Go away, demon! That is not you.

I have never felt purposelessness. I have never had this kind of crisis for meaning. And yet I've never believed in anything specific, or had any kind of "higher yearning". I believe there is more to reality than empiricism can tell us, but this is as far as I am willing to go in terms of assumptions.
I don't know. I just don't feel the existential dread. I've always coasted through life (not materially, but in terms of mindset) and never really cared about anything, sometimes it feels like I'm just letting myself float. I'm okay with this, with existence as a whole, I don't believe its nature can be known and I don't seek either truth or meaning, I don't think there is anything to seek, I think I should just live.

>>19147248
You will find it. You don't need to believe me and you don't need to do anything in particular. One day you will see something beyond your comprehension. Remember this post in that time and keep your rationality intact, though you likely would regardless.
What are you, mid 20s?

>>19147267
But I don't seek it. I don't think meaning is necessary. I've seen some shit that completely defies my comprehension, and I just take it as it is. The world is strange, being itself is strange, I keep this in mind at all times and take everything in stride.
Mid twenties, yes.

>>19147281
You'll understand when it happens.

>>19147288
What was your experience?

>>19147089
Should have made him dreaming of the forest

>>19146827
>when you're +30 and enjoying sex

i'm genuinely surprised this cock is still going.

Maybe im too much of a broken person to find a meaning.

honestly the only thing that is worth contributing to this world is something that damages people, e.g. addictive porn or propaganda to cuck them even further
it may be not the noble thing to do but nobody cares if you do noble things so why give them that? give them what they deserve.

>>19147046
You are a huge fucking baby, goddamn. Stop with all the pissing and moaning about society and make your art, if you want to be an artist. Or don't, it doesn't matter to me.

>>19147296
A very well known secret my man. Don't worry about it.

>>19147690
Come on don't be evasive.

>>19147696
It's not really an experience. It's more of a shift of perception. Like I said, beyond comprehension. Use your patience.

>>19131415
Congrats on coming to the realization that everyone else does at 21!

>>19147759
I'm in my 30s and experience much less existential dread and thirst for meaning than I did in my 20s. Not everyone walks the same path as you.

>>19131467

I'm fascinated by this illustration. Is it just ink and colored pencils?

>>19131549
Reading is a nice hobby, but it is consumption still.
Write, draw, bang out some tunes. Hone a skill. Do something you can grow in (exercise is good in this respect, but not quite the same as what I mean).

>>19136255
>It's not just about me but the fact that nobody really seems to be working on anything in this spirit anymore. I think this is the same reason why religion died. It's become too difficult to reach out to people. It's even hard to think of them as people when you're making something, you have to think of them as consumers, like a bunch of wild animals that you throw meat to.
Damn anon... I agree. One gets the impression that no one has the time of day for anyone anymore. We are all becoming too inward oriented, too selfish with our spare time, which we would rather use to consume —unless the activity implies some form of leisure (i.e sharing drugs/alcohol) or self-benefit.
There is no desire to form communities with our neighbors. People simply distrust one another too much, and as a result we live in a permanent state of anxiety and alienation. What has caused this? Was it always that way?

>Finally done commuting the 2 hours back home from my shift at Amazon. Boy I am so fucking tired. But this won't stop me! I will spend a WHOLE 30 minutes on my grand oeuvre before my mandatory Amazon buttplug orders to me to go to sleep via electric shock! Mr. Bezos wants me early at work tomorrow... They're mass ordering that pornstar's book, "I sucked 10000 dicks, so what?" it won 12 awards for being so brave and feminist... must be a real page turner, our society after all is meritocracy based... That's why I'm stuck wageslaving haha.. but one day I will finally submit it my own masterpiece to FreeSelfPublishedShitDumpster.com, where nobody will give a fuck about it! My God, what a fucking great life, full of purpose! I really feel like I am doing something of value for the world and myself here! I could spend this doing doing literally anything else, like cooking a bunch of meals I can freeze for a rainy day... fixing the toilet which broke again, wish I had money to buy a spare part... nono, I have to stay committed to this impulse! Art! Ohh, so great! I am really doing something precious here, Art! The open aahh and then that nice roll of the tongue and the gentle touch of the t against the teeth, like a kiss! A-rrrrr-t! So beautiful! Stripped to nothing but this abstract three letter word with no inherent meaning, truly something worth living a godawful miserable life of loneliness as a mega loser! This beautiful, hair-dyed, tattooed, pornography addicted, godless humanity may mock me and hate me for being so privileged, but oh boy, I am making capital-A Art here! It might go in a dumpster directly after I die in a job accident, or a gentleman at Netflix may adapt it, or people may enact some cosplay porn of it! I am so looking forward to my work being dignified by the people! So much meaning! This is totally sustainable! I can totally see my life revolving around empty working on things that will be treated in the worst possible way! This totally won't drain me of everything I have! Schopenhauer said so while sniffing his rich mother's cunt off the bills the paid! I am not weak this is normal, it's normal to endure being this cucked!
Thanks for reading. I am ripping mad farts right now, and feeling kinda shit in general, something must be wrong with my health but I'll never know what because I don't have money to get checked. Art sustains me! YAaaayyy!

Find something to do. I used to be pessimistic and a misanthrope, but then I realised that I can do whatever I want and there isn't anyone except me tying me down. You're young. You can afford to mess up your life and build it up again a good two-three times. Assuming you are able-bodied, create a short-term plan and follow it. This doesn't have to be a productive kind of thing. Just do whatever you always wanted to but never got the chance. Move to the Maldives and become a scuba diving instructor, I don't know, just pick something. It's not really about doing the right thing (obviously don't do anything stupid that directly worsens your life) than it is about doing something. When I was in your situation, I had just dropped out of university after the first year because I felt stuck in my life. The ennui of daily existence, and the knowledge of what the rest of my life would look like, suffocated me. But then I read Heidegger and saw the radical freedom that I, as a human, have. I moved to a different city, got a job as a receptionist at a hotel, saved money, went traveling, lived in a different country for six months, got a girlfriend, broke up and got another one, and generally felt happy and fulfilled with my life. Now at 36 I've returned to my home city, am married with one child, and have saved enough to start a moving business. Keep in mind that I am a first-generation immigrant, and dropped out of uni with £2000 in my bank account, so it's not as if I was traveling with daddy's credit card. Life is what you make it, and the people on this website tend to overthink it. It's really not that difficult. I'm not saying my life is what your life should be, but whatever it is that you have to do, you'll figure it out if you do something and see what sticks.

read The Denial of Death if you want to cope
read Cioran if you want to spend the next 40 years facing the void, hard mode

>>19148822
>You can afford to mess up your life and build it up again a good two-three times.
t. rich

>>19148836
do you think it being a cope makes it less true? some copes are valid right???

>>19148863
Anons like him would have you believe everything except making money and fucking bitches is cope.

>>19131415
In reality, suicide is the only meaningful choice anyone can ever make. You don't want to wink out of existence, presumably? If not, you're correct, there's nothing to look forward to. You'll age into an unlikable and exasperated curmudgeon. Why? You're living in late-stage capitalism, at the tail-end of our history where nothing matters anymore. I'd advise avoiding any relationships, a partner is almost guaranteed to cheat on you in the current climate, attempting to set limits will brand you as abusive as your reputation is savaged. Work will always feel unsatisfying, no matter the field. Doesn't matter if you can be creative, or work creatively now, you don't own the means of production, so you're always going to be the extraneous operator. There's nothing to look forward to. Nothing.

>>19147799
Coloured pencils I think. The artist is @kinokorp on instagram she has a lot of really pretty drawings.

>>19148863
My definition of cope is something we use to deal with the inherent meaninglessness of existence. If you did deeply enough in any direction, you reach the void. But then Becker argues that we need a purpose to be happy. Cioran's work basically agrees, he himself being an example of how insane you can become without meaning in life. The difficult task is believing in something when you also believe that there is nothing to believe in.

>>19149320
How do you know existence is meaningless? There's no evidence one way or the other

Do not be afraid of life, for life has its meaning: be true to life, for loss of will is the meaning of death. You must learn to conquer the spirit of fear until it has become a phantom. This spirit of fear is but a breath; a gust of wind, passing over the face of this earth. The earth itself, to me, is the highest power. All that was, shall once again be, or ever will be.

>>19150154
I dont have anything that i'd do if spirit of fear would be a silent ghost.

>>19131943
I had phimosis as a kid until my late teens. Actually it got cured, when I started having sex. Dunno, maybe it never was as bad to begin with.

>>19147789
Yes but you experienced those things. I never did and I still don't. Just because not everyone walks the same path doesn't mean everyone walks a completely different one. I wasn't talking to you.

>>19131943
http://phimosisjourney.com/
https://www.phimocure.net/

Do regular stretching until you can get phimocure in, it will suck and be difficult the first time because your glans is sensitive but it works. Don't rush it either because you will get micro tears. Stretch without it at first to see if you get progress.

>b-but i have special phimosis that is unfixable
http://phimosisjourney.com/pictures/
http://phimosisjourney.com/pictures/
http://phimosisjourney.com/pictures/

>>19134814
Agree with this recommendation.
It is especially relatable if you started with the Greeks, LARPed as a Christian, and at some point of your life thought that Schopenhauer got it right.

>>19134814
>>19151040
>muh peasants are so pure!
I lost my suspension of disbelief when he started talking about the muziki as if they were the "true" Christians. Every single rural uneducated, church-going person I have seen in my life was absolutely vile and cared absolutely nothing about his faith, morality, or whatever. Peasants just do what the other people do, and what most people do is usuall what is mandated by a higher authority. Urbanites are far, FAR more genuinely moral and even those are pretty much ethically bankrupt scum.

>>19131943
I'm 5'7, I realized how little it actually mattered when I started getting girls. Just dont let people bitch you around and you're fine. Napoleon complex is infinitely more respectable than being a pushover mopey bitch.

>>19132684
Is that the one where he catches finches every day and eventually has so many he ties them all together with an old shoe lace and flies out of Ouchwitz?

>>19131943
wait why does having phimosis matter? Do girls not like it or does it make you sterile? t. phimosis touchless virgin but not incel

>>19151306
if it's not painful it doesn't matter

Who gives a shit about Art anymore? We need militants, warriors, paladins, not more navel-gazing embers of Joyce trying to write the 21st century Ulysses. You niggers really need to read Those Who Walk Away from Omelas and get it into your thick skulls how ridiculous this craving for Art and becoming an Artist really is in the face of death and suffering.

>>19151324
Is art inherently evil? Lately I've started thinking about this. You usually make a distinction between the "true" art that enriches mankind and the "lower" art but is there really such a thing? Even philosophy at this point is just some convoluted form of entertainment, your life doesn't depend on it, people just read it to engage in this more pretentious small talk.

>>19151413
I wouldn't say evil, but does it presuppose the very violence and malaise it's supposed to remedy? Yes. In the Omelas story, the adults know their civilization depends on the anonymous suffering of a child, and that's exactly what gives their art its piquance.

Nobody gives a shit about Art when they're really suffering. Maybe the mode of being Art has cultivated in you (which true religion does better), but - le great art, le artist, le artist's vocation, le art as a lineage and a method and an academy? What a joke.

>>19151426
>which true religion does better
I have remarked that people at this point demand that the "artist" die of the same martyrdom as a literal saint, yet not in the name of God or the goal of eternal salvation but instead in the name of the industrial system with the goal to entertain a bunch of spineless consumers. Lately I have started to think that the only good art is art that glorifies God. In this mode, art has a function. This is how Bach made his music. Any other goal is ultimately vile, not because of the absence of God but because when art is not oriented to serve the ineffable it is inevitably used to degrade people, and even if one's intentions are pure, people will degrade it until it is capable of degrading themselves.

>>19151504
Yes, but one caveat: only art that glorifies God and sets the groundwork for some kind of exit from the system.

There's nothing more myopic to me today than trying to write the next big aestheticization of capitalism/capitalist life.

>>19151523
>glorifies God and sets the groundwork for some kind of exit from the system.
Isn't that implicit? Assuming it's Christianity.

>>19131415
Gravity's Rainbow

>>19151619
Sure, but it has to be made explicit, or you're stuck publishing short story collections into your 60s while the world burns.

>>19151722
I think I understand but I'm not sure. Do you mean explicit in the sense that you specifically have to talk about God? In that case that's what I meant. Not "vaguely Christian-themed" but straight up Christian.
Although I doubt any of it would be taken seriously so I don't know if it's much of a service toward God. In the end the best way is to reject works of art altogether and focus on religious acts.

>>19131427
Capital isnt really the main book of Marx that talks about purposelessness.
And besides that, Marxism cant really do much about it other than pretend that it will magically go away under communism.

>>19147771
just because it is a nearly universal human experience, that doesn't make it banal. in fact, pretty much the opposite. i'm in my mid 30s and its been like 20 years since i first had crisis like that, and it never goes away. you just get better at coping and sublimating.

>>19152648
How do you cope?

>>19153896
the best way to cope is to arrange your life in a way that you not only find tolerable, but actually pleasant for the most part. I have a family, home, decent career, friends, hobbies, etc. I know that it is all meaningless and I don't try to ignore or hide from that. But at the end of the day, the only other option is to kill yourself. And if you're not going to do that, you might as well get your shit together. My life was much less bearable when I had shit job, poor, isolated from friends, no hobbies, etc.

As for the sublimating part, I'm still not really good at that. I think one of the best ways to deal with the emptiness is to look inward and find some idea inside you that you want to make real. even if everything is bullshit, at least you're able to create something that you personally think is meaningful. there's been a lot of discussion of art here, and I do think sublimating this angst into some kind of project is a very good strategy. I just haven't been able to identify what it is I want to give birth to. a lot of failed starts. but that is still better than nothing.

People often cite mystical experiences as proof that there is meaning but what makes them exempt from meaninglessness? They just give an impression of meaning. If they were truly meaningful, all religions wouldn't have their own brand and flavors.
I'm really starting to think it's just all one big cope, bros. Where do I go from there

>>19154270
>but what makes them exempt from meaninglessness?
nothing. all meaning is subjective. even if god is real and says this is what is important and this is how you should do things, so what? if you can make a compelling argument that those things are actually retarded and gay, why should you have to care? what's he gonna do? punish you eternally? so what? that's pretty retarded and gay too.

>>19154365
Based

>>19151625
I swear this book is a psyops, the wording is so unpoetic and pretentious. It's as if the author wrote it with a thesaurus next to their teapot.

How anyone can enjoy and absorb it is beyond me

>>19135237
Seems insipired by Bataille's Literature and Evil. Have you read in anon? I do not know your social circle, but within mine that connection is there.

you fancy prancy cunts need to get your asses kicked