/lit/ - Literature

Don't.

>>7249697
This. It is a wonderful fulfilling hobby. Leave it at that.

>>7249697
Yeah, yeah.
That's the advice I followed 9 years ago when I went to school. Despite only ever really loving reading and writing I did the smart thing and went Computer Science. I've got a lucrative career but I just don't give a shit.

I read as much as I can, averaging about a book a week, and I try to write but I've come to the conclusion that it's impossible to do anything good in a vacuum. I need people to discuss ideas with, to critique my writing and help me improve. I want the literary lifestyle dammit.

>>7249722
Than go to coffee shops or book clubs, or move to San Fran or NYC and find a job similar to yours with reduced hours, and just spend all evenings chatting about books with your friends or writing your novel in a brooklyn loft.

Consider that possibly you are having a mid life crisis here. I'm 33 and want to get my bench up to 365 pounds, my wife asks me why and I almost start weeping

I am sympathetic, but dont drop money on another degree when you can just spend more time at the library.

>>7249737
You raise some good points. And I must admit I can feel the pull of rationality telling me to do what you say, but I still have two counterpoints left.
As for the money, I already took a six month sabbatical from my career once and ended up blowing through close to 20k, which was half my savings at the time. Maybe it was a dumb thing to do, I think it was a lot of the time, but if I'm willing to blow that much money on something as stupid as an extended vacation, shouldn't I be willing to spend at least that much in pursuit of a life with meaning?

My second point is simple: That there are people living that life. Why should I be different? People are out there going from grad school to grad school devoting their life to reading and writing. I know for every wunderkid making his way in academia there's 100 who end up jobless debtors, but whose to say I can't be the 1 in 100? I know a few friends who are doing MFA's and what have you right now, and they're all dumb fucks who don't know shit about literature. If they're the norm in grad school I should be able to stand out easily.

>>7249722
>literary lifestyle

No such thing bro. If that's what you seek you won't get it

>>7249755
It sounds like you are depressed. Kicking over your life like a set table will not solve that.

One thing I considered when I was in NYC is auditing courses at night or on my days off. It costs like 1/4 the cost of a real class without the fees. If you take what you have learned you can write and self publish on Amazon for much cheaper than ending your current career. Its all about being dispassionate regarding risk. Also, you can torrent great courses from the teaching company or take open courses from Yale or Stanford or Itunes.

Of course, if you are european, just quit your job and go to school on neet bux

>>7249755
Your first point is called 'sunk cost fallacy'

Your second is called narcissism

It's gonna be a bad midlife crisis but not as bad as adultery, I guess

>>7249781
Good post

>>7249690
Open University.

>>7249737
>>7249791
I'm 26 and I feel like I've been having a 'mid-life crisis' for like 10 years now.

>>7249781
I have thought about auditing, but what classes are taught at night?
I played with the idea of self publishing on Amazon, but my fiction isn't good enough to make any money yet. And, as I said, at this point I feel like it never will be working in a vacuum like I am. Watching video courses wouldn't help that.

Sadly I am in America. I've honestly considered immigrating to Europe and getting a programming job until I have citizenship, then going back to university.

>>7249813
Googling online creative writing courses brings up a shitload. I guess if I were you I would do a state university program that is online most of the time and meets on saturdays. I bet it would be better than regular uni because as you said

>>7249755
>I know a few friends who are doing MFA's and what have you right now, and they're all dumb fucks who don't know shit about literature. If they're the norm in grad school I should be able to stand out easily.

You would be working with people who actually have lived life. Also, critique through online forums would probably be just as good as having a round-circle of 21 year old MFA assholes criticizing your work.

>>7249830
But what if I don't want to do creative writing? I think I'm better at essays, but doing that outside of academia is even more of a struggle than fiction.

>>7249813
>I'm 26 and I feel like I've been having a 'mid-life crisis' for like 10 years now.

Jesus Christ. Are you me?

>>7249892
>>7249813
Not to be all MRA but I firmly believe that the modern world lacks outlets for young men's ambition and aggression.

>>7249722

howdy fella.

Glad to hear that you're interested in academia.
Always interesting to hear different perspectives on things. Wish that I could get through an engaging book a week.

I'm a struggling writer/student here too - feel that literature's a path to belief and self actualisation.

If you ever feel like talking, you can always write to people and there's some good groups irl and online as well. Grateful for the feedback myself.

>>7249897
I think it's a combination of that, and the fact that most people today have little faith in society's institutions, which then also include higher education institutions.

There is no wonder that people do not study what they want, when they know that the market they will inevitably turn to after their education, does not want them, or have a need for them.

I think in 20 years, there will probably only be STEM in universities, because by then, every 60s professor is dead.

>>7249857
journalism?

I think the concept of quarter-life crises needs to explored in more detail - what causes wanderlust etc? Is the stories we tell, or simply genetic inheritence?

>>7249897
Young men don't read for shit anymore though is the thing. I'd love to see a book really appeal to the 18-25 white robot aesthetic, but I just can't see it working when no one would be there to sell it as good and applicable.

>>7249941
Yeah, journalism would be great.
How do you get into it?
At least academia has a designated entry point. And from there it can, in theory, take you to multiple exit points including journalism.

>>7249958
>I'd love to see a book really appeal to the 18-25 white robot aesthetic

Most post-modern American lit probably does though. I mean, I reflect and have way more epiphanies when I read Infinite Jest for example, than if I read anything made 150 years ago.

>>7249910
Hey someone actually in academia in this thread.
Do you have any tips on how to get in? Being out of school for years I don't have any of the all important professor recommendations.
I heard that I can take a few classes as a 'special student.' Maybe if I took a chunk out of my savings and powered through like six classes in a semester and worked with the professors I could then get into a grad school with TA position or stipend or what have you?
Is that feasible?

>>7249897
The military is still there, but I and most don't want to join because we don't need outlets for aggression. We just want meaning. It's not a problem that was solved in the past, now is just the first time that a majority of people can experience this problem. For most of history young men were busy working for their food. Existential angst has always been a problem for the youth of the indolent class all the way back to ancient Sumer. Now that class is damn near everybody and we have an epidemic of meaninglessness.

>>7250196
The military works by breaking your personality and turning you into a cog in the machine. It's not a place any healthy person would seek fulfilling ambition.

>>7249958
>I'd love to see a book really appeal to the 18-25 white robot aesthetic
Houellebecq?

>>7249690
How about you just spend 1 semester's tuition and buy a ton of books, then fucking study them?

I studied lit, but I got to be honest there wasn't really anything I got from school that I couldn't have done on my own.

A lot of /lit/ strongly disagrees with that, but I figure it's because most all of them are freshmen who do everything they can to justify their choice to go to college. A college degree is not what it was 20 years ago, and a fucking LIT degree is a laughable thing to see on anyone's resume. You might as well have gotten a degree in art or theater or women's studies as far as an employer is concerned.

If you want to study books, then buy fucking book and study them.

>>7251855
That's because you did it wrong. Don't feel bad about it, I made the same mistake in comp sci.
To anyone here who might still be in school, you are not in school just to go to class! I know you've all heard this spiel before, but I dearly wish now that someone had really come and shouted it in my ear until I listened.
You are also in school to make connections. Work with your professors. Help them with their research, participate in groups and clubs in things you are interested in. If you can't find one, then create one.
This is how you get ahead on this world, and it's not even some sinister nepotism scheme. It's how it should work. The professors don't have time to waste convincing students to be engaged. They spend their time on those who come to them with ideas and enthusiasm.

>>7251855
>fucking laughable on a resume
You don't really know how real jobs work then, huh. I mean, unless you applied to a STEM job with only a lit degree, then you're fucking stupid. Most college grads end up in fields not directly related to their degrees, so that shows how higher value is placed just on having a degree.
Also, if you literally got NOTHING out of your classes, you either
a) a went to a shit tier school
or
b) were too much of a thick skulled sperglord to actually try to learn anything.
inb4 you just accuse me of being a fanny blasted freshman, currently a masters candidate

>>7251838
>those fucking proportions

>>7252225
rodinesque shit tbh

>>7249690

Don't do it OP

I got an English Lit degree and now I am at a crossroads from which I can see no path that I really care much about following. I work jobs that sit back and let me read but in terms of choosing a career I have no idea what to do. A Lit degree means that you have to follow up with another degree in order to have work it seems. I'm considering going to a professional college for a degree in publishing or going to teacher's college but I have no ambitions and my anxieties over the fact that I'm quite happy working my minimum wage jobs and the societal enforced delusion that I have to get a "real" job often get the better of me

>>7252255
You just said you have no ambitions, that sounds like you have more of a personal issue than one with what degree you got.

>>7252274

who says a lack of ambition is a personal issue?

and the only path to really take for the ambitious types with English Lit degrees is into advertising and that's for soulless fucks

>>7249690
I recently dropped out of a literature program at Berkeley to take prerequisites for Math, CS, and Economics (undecided) at my CC. Don't bother.

>>7252255
>>7252284
See you guys complaining that lit degree isn't enough are missing the whole point. I know it's not enough, that's why I want it. To get the next thing. I want to go all the way baby. PhD at the least.

>>7252360
>I want to go all the way baby. PhD at the least.

Why....?

For one, there's plenty of LA PhDs who are delivering pizzas. For another, even if you find a university job, it's not like it's a great job. They make like 40k a year on average and you got to deal with whiny ass kids all day.

>>7252360
Yeah, I was planning on getting a PhD, hence going to Berkeley. It's not worth it. Most of your favorite writers, in fact, probably none of them, do not have a PhD or even a bachelors in literature. Seriously, quit it with this fucking gay mid-life crisis bullshit and man up. You really think you want to teach 18-yr-olds about John Milton or Transatlantic Modernist Feminists of Color for the rest of your life? If so, I'm honestly surprised you're on 4chan because that's normie as fuck.

>>7252364
I have a career that pays me 85k. I don't need that much money, it does nothing for me and for five days a week my best hours are spent in programming which leave me mentally drained. If I don't change something I'll be doing exactly that year after year for the rest of my life and have nothing at the end except some zeroes in a bank account.

I have to believe that the majority of those pizza delivering PhD's are like the people I know personally who are pursuing lit graduate degrees or like some of the sad sacks in this thread. Ie, people who sat through their classes checked out and felt they'd done good enough with their A's and that surely a nice job would show up at the end of the tunnel where they could sit around and be checked out there too.

If I get in there, if I work personally with the professors and pursue passion projects and bring students together and make things happen. If I free myself from this programming drudgery to truly immerse myself in reading and writing and learning and networking in the social rather than technological sense, surely I can get that 40k job. And that 40k job doing what I love will be worth infinitely more than my 85k now.

>>7252380
Look, guys, an idée fixe! Look at what our literature degrees are doing for us!

>>7252375
You're the one who wants a job without meaning so you fill that bank account and coast for the rest of your life. You're the normie.
Caring about literature and art so much that you can bring energy to teaching checked out freshmen about John Milton, that's what life is about.

>>7252393
Or MAYBE it is easier to write and make art when you have some stability in your life. Read the dry academic journal articles on any writer and you'll soon learn that "academic life" can be equally mindnumbing.

If it is time you are worried about, then you really ought to become a NEET rather than pissing 10 years of your life away on a useless degree and training for an occupation that has just as much potential to be as mediocre as programming but paying less.

>>7252375
>idée fixe
Also I hate this idea that gets tossed around that there are so many great writers existing outside of academia. While many of them may not have PhDs, so so many of them live off the academia or did until they got big. Many of them just don't advertise that fact or actively discourage it's spread.
In fact it's easier to figure out the ones who don't and yet if you look into it you find they basically all had situations that allowed them to interact with a society of other writers and forgo full time careers.

>>7252410
>>7252392
I must admit y'all are wearing me down.
It was never something I was planning to do right away, I wanted at least one more year to save up, but I'm definitely rethinking the whole idea. Perhaps there's some other way I can find a life with meaning.
Maybe I'll have kids and raise them to be the brilliant ambitious people I wish I had been at 20, since apparently in this world you have to have your shit together by 20 or you won't get anywhere.
If you can't leave a memetic legacy there's always solace in a genetic one.

>>7252428
I completely disagree. Google "list of american writers" or whatever nationality you prefer. Probably 95+% do not have PhD's and then a steady majority will not have literature degrees or were even drop-outs and never attended university.

The only thing you are almost right about is this:
>they basically all had situations that allowed them to interact with a society of other writers and forgo full time careers.

There are still plenty of writers who juggled careers while writing, but plenty more succeeded simply by going full NEET and taking a risk with their novels rather than going back to university. Having encouraging friends who will respect your decision to quit your job and right will make that easier, but their knowledge won't help you become a better writer.

>>7252482
write* not right oops
>>7252459
both posters are me, bub.

>>7252488
Oh.
So has this thread just been us? Two jackasses yammering back and forth?

>>7252716
No, there were some others, but they ran off.