/lit/ - Literature

>>19959803
I've seen Infinite Jest talked about a lot but never read it, is this one more relevant?

>>19959791
The Iliad. You are Achilles.

>>19959817
Funny enough I'm actually reading the Iliad for the first time right now, only up to the duel between Menelaus and Hector but Achilles really doesn't seem to be a major character in it so far. I assume he's more involved later.

>>19959791
you should probably get into drugs.

>>19959814
The Pale King takes the main theme of Infinite Jest and reworks/expands on it from the context of office drone. They both would apply to your situation, Infinite Jest will just take more abstraction on your part; you will need to empathize and figure out how your problem is the same problem as that of drug addicts and teenage tennis prodigies and fill in some pieces yourself.

>>19959840
I've done plenty of drugs. Coke, acid, mushrooms, aderall, xanax, etc. Never really changed anything.

>>19959903
So Pale King would be an easy intro to his style though?

>>19959913
how is it possible to do drugs and still be a virgin? do you order online and do them while on 4chan?

>>19959931
No? With psychedelics I usually do them either at a concert or with my friends at somebody's place. With coke/xanax I did it a lot going out to bars in college. Why would that magically make me not a virgin?

Your life is too safe. A life full of shortage and need is what creates meaning for your actions. Just being CONSOOMER will feel empty.

>>19959949
I agree it's too safe but I don't really know how to change that? I do things like surfing and spear-fishing which seem to impress the boring normies at work but it doesn't really change anything. I'm not really that big of a consoomer, mostly my money just piles up in a savings account.

I always struggle with these questions because I’ve been there myself and I just don’t even know what to say…

>>19959965
Are you not there anymore? What changed? I feel like my 20s are flying by and this is the time you're supposed to take risks and find some kind of hobby/trade/career/whatever to devote yourself to but I don't really know how to do that or what I want

>>19959958
>I do things like surfing and spear-fishing

Read Down and Out in Paris and London, but I don't think you're going to make it.

>>19959913
>So Pale King would be an easy intro to his style though?
Sure. His style is fairly easy, biggest issue people seem to have with it is they get caught up in its being easy and enjoyable to read and miss the point. His writing tends to be considerably more complex than the ease of reading suggests, for example in The Pale King he uses a very simplistic and almost painful bit of meta narrative to hide more complex and subtle meta narrative elements which support theme and even the execution of this supports theme.

>>19959980
>I don't think you're going to make it.
I mean I'm not like depressed or whatever, if anything I'm an optimist. I just don't feel much direction. Haven't read Orwell outside of 1984 and Animal Farm but I'll give that a look.

>>19959984
Interesting, yeah I've heard his style is a bit complex but I'll add this to my list.

>>19959976
I just never reached a happy or satisfying conclusion, unfortunately and that’s actually amplified an already present deep and dark depression in myself, which is where I’m still at. So while I sympathize, and in some sense I feel that I’ve resolved something, I don’t like to discuss it because I feel I have nothing positive to offer you or anyone else.

>>19960026
fair enough

>>19960024
>I'm not like depressed or whatever
I would be in your position.

>>19960024
His complexity is only difficult in that it is easy to miss despite his tendency to do the literary equivalent of jumping up and down and waving his arms around saying look here! I am misdirecting you! this is what is really important! And despite this people often miss it, they fall for the misdirection. In the meta bit he (the character of DFW in the novel) literally says that it is not some sort of cheap meta titty pincher and that he hates those, which in of itself is meta; he is literally saying there is something more to this meta stuff than a cheap trick and that the meta aspect serves a purpose beyond being meta, but many people only see the cheap meta titty pincher that sits on the surface. He does these sorts of things throughout most of his fiction, hides things in plain sight, even his symbolism follows this pattern and it is barely symbolism in the sense it is normally used in literature, there is almost no abstraction, this drawing of a man is symbolism for a man and hey that is you, what do you see of yourself in that symbol of a man? He exploits that people look for the complicated solutions, an extension of the irony thing; if you are always ironic how will anyone know what you mean? He is not being ironic or complex, just exploiting that people will assume that he is despite his being fairly honest and direct which reveals a different sort of complexity.

Please don't fall into the trap of this "life too safe" risk taking bullshit. What does that even have do to with it? Please, for your own good. Ultimately you will realize that there is no real answer to whatever question you are asking in this thread. Once you find out who you really are and who you really want to be, even asking the question will seem absurd. You see? The solution isn't to find an answer, it's to unask the question.

>>19959947
how the fuck are you a virgin if you're an extroverted low inhibition, low iq normalfaggot?

>>19959791
book of disquiet

>>19959791
here ya go anon

>>19959828
A wise man indeed

>>19959791
>How do people figure out what they want to spend their lives doing?
They go through the Oedipus complex relatively successfully.

>>19959791
TekWar, TekLords, TekLab and Tek Kill

>>19960372
But what is the question?

>>19960755
I'm not any of those things, I'm an autist who has faked himself though life, I see a man and I pretend to be him..,please help me have sex I do not see anyone do that so I can't copy it...I'm a fool and noting more I just want to fit in,

>>19960961
Wiseness doesn't help me...

>>19961038
I have no desire for my mother

>>19962256
gee thanks

>>19960755
faggot

>>19960755
what a prodigious retard you are

>>19959791
>25 year old virgin
Why

>>19964632
Sorry some of us were born ugly and autistic

>>19959791
Londonfrog's Collected Posts, as assembled in "The Last Binge Ever" Vols. 1-2.

>>19959803 is pretty good too.

>>19964880
>he doesn't know about volume 3

>>19964642
>>19964632
I'm not even ugly I just don't know how/where you meet women. My friends are guys, my coworkers are all older, apps never lead to anything I match with decent looking girls but they all either don't respond or ghost me before we can meet.

>>19965172
Your guy friends gotta hook you up. Or go out somewhere and pick up some ho.

>>19965567
None of my friends are friends with any girls and the ones who have gfs don't really seem like they have any single friends. I go out to bars a lot but I don't get how you magically get a girl to sleep with you. They're never there alone always with other guys and if you try to go up to them and interrupt their conversations or whatever to talk to them they just get mad.

>>19964930
I don't. Is there a third volume?!

>>19964880
>>19964930
>>19965970
>telling an anon in need of guidance to read londonfrog
if only for a warning of what not to become

>>19965993
Warnings can be powerful things, anon. I made significant changes to my life after reading Ishiguro's Remains of the Day, because I was going on a path remarkably similar to Stevens' and didn't want to end up where he did. Thankfully I read it early enough to change course.

>>19959791
I remember when I started my comfy office job at 23. That was 10 years ago, it feels like yesterday. Everyday is the same and because of that time feels like it passes faster. I am trapped in this hell, this fast forwarding time warp and I don't know how to escape. Sometimes I'm afraid that one day I will wake up and it will be my retirement party and I legitimately won't know where the years went. I think about killing myself often and with prolonged focus...

But as far as books go you should really just pick whatever suits your fancy, there's no real right or wrong. Right now I'm reading Blood Meridian because a month ago Anons here were talking about it and it sounded like a fun read. I'm enjoying it so far.

>>19959791
>>19967285
On second thought another really good book that might be relevant is "I'm thinking of ending things" if you want a real rude awakening of where a dead end life and a dead end job might land you.

>>19965828
Hey man I get it but that’s just how normies do it.

>>19965970
>Is there a third volume?!

Yeah, it's only available in PDF though:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cDyQ4AGISzKJsymNjDndc54KBxMlxbO9/view