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/lit/ - Literature

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16947378 No.16947378 [Reply] [Original]

Lads, do you have any literary or more general advice / recommendations for a severely depressed male in their late 20s?

At the moment I have a desire to simply go hiking across Europe for a few months with no real direction in mind (I am very asocial and barely leave the house), though I am afraid this is just a LARP or a form of daydreaming. I am at a moment in life where I look back and see so much stupidity, so many mistakes, so much waste. It is quite overwhelming and I struggle to find the motivation to apply for (minimum wage) work without first sorting myself out somehow.

>> No.16947395

>>16947378
If you've well and truly nothing left to lose, try taking some hallucinogens. My preference are mushrooms.

I was pretty badly depressed until I started taking them and microdosing. It's not a magic wand though and can make some people worse or wacky - but if it doesn't work, at least you tried and can therefore commit suicide in confidence.

>> No.16947416

>>16947378
Start writing a journal, copy passages of books that you like and review them.

>> No.16947421

>>16947395
They are illegal here, how did you get them?

I'm not sure if I would take something like that.

>> No.16947433

Maybe try The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham. The main character has a similar mindset after a traumatizing experience in WW1. It's not as explicitly idealistic as most books with that kind of plot (Maugham in general is rather cynical). If you enjoy it Of Human Bondage has a lot of similarities and these kind of idealistic characters show up all over his fiction. They share a lot of similarities with Murakami's protagonists. If you haven't read Murakami you probably should give him a try, his characters are often at the same kind of "dead end" and searching for something more in life.

>> No.16947446

>>16947416
I already feelpost daily on /tv/, which is essentially what I would write in a journal.

>> No.16947478

>>16947421
I grew them. Depending on your country of course it's usually legal to buy the spores (because they're not psychoactive), the kit to grow them (because it's just a kit). You can grow them in darkness and don't need much space. Really fun hobby.

Fun fact - the largest living organism is a type of honey mushroom in the Malheur National Forest, Oregon. It's area something like 2400 acres and is thought to be between 2 to 8 thousand years old. Swallow the funguspill.

>> No.16947490

>>16947433
Thank you.

>> No.16947507

>>16947378
I'll tell you a story. I've wanted to be a writer since I was 20 years old. I'm 31 now. When I was 28, I had a bad winter at work and was on the verge of quitting when I discovered that my company (a multibillion dollar corporation) had a sabbatical leave program. I applied to get three months off, deferred wages, and then took three months off with the deferred pay. I went to Europe.

This had followed a serious sense of Wunderlust, to escape to the woods, to wander freely across the country and live as a nomad. I read London and Kerouac, I researched off-grid living, did some hitchhiking and train-hopping. But at the end of the day, those little "adventures" didn't help me write. Writing made me write. Being sober made me write. Reading made me write. That's all there is to it.

You have a desire to escape, but the first notions of escape which come to mind probably won't help you. Instead of escaping the city, you have to escape your reliance on comfort. Instead of escaping convenience, you have to escape your vices. Instead of escaping misery and depression, you have to escape your unwillingness to organize your thoughts. I hope this helps.

>> No.16947578

So I went on this three-month trip and my lifestyle didn't change at all. It just occurred in a different geographic location. See, I thought that my dedication to my job was what was holding me back. So, having removed my job from the scenario, I should've lived the life of a writer. But I didn't writer particularly more than I had been doing before. If you want to write, you will find the time to write and read. That's the real challenge.

>> No.16947589

>>16947395
>If you've well and truly nothing left to lose, try taking some hallucinogens. My preference are mushrooms.

Not him but I can't help but feel that hallucinogenics just present false depth where there's none. Like the way weed makes any inane thought that you'd otherwise ignore feel a million times more profound.

>> No.16947660

>>16947507
Thank you, it does help.

>>16947578
Thanks, and I feel the same way about geographical location, i.e., travelling in the past hasn't tempted me. I just feel like escaping.

>> No.16947702

How did you guys get over the feeling that you don't have anything worth saying that others haven't already said and in a more articulate manner? I feel completely paralyzed by it. I don't want to be just another hack, even if it very well could be that my fate is unfortunately just that.

>> No.16947895

>>16947702
My advice would be to figure out who you are, at least then all the experience and knowledge you accumulate will be attributed to the same person, rather than someone whose identity shifts according to prevailing trends etc. The greatest writers, musicians etc dedicated themselves to a form of art, quite specific, and their energy was directed to that. Can you imagine Lovecraft writing a romantic literary novella for example? No, because his identity flourished in the writing of weird fiction, even if it only reached a tiny audience which grew after his death. Too many people, including writers, try to write for a perceived audience and their efforts are received with phony praise though the work never stands the test of time, because they are simply actors speaking to peoples' superficial identities without reaching them at a deeper level. Art is inherently transgressive, whether that be in the form of shocking the audience or risking the audience's disapproval in some form.

It's important to keep reading widely, making notes, constructing and widening an internal library of quotations, references, plot structures, characters etc in your unconscious, as this will all be useful when you allow that unconscious to guide your writing. You will know if something has already been said, and whether or not you can or should express a similar thing in your own way. When someone in college asked DFW how he kept scoring top marks in his essays, he simply replied that he had done the recommended reading, which most people shirk. be obsessive, and allow yourself the luxury of thinking you have something to say and that you have the talent to reach people at a level you like being reached; every writer of renown has some kind of megalomaniacal streak in them (I can cite several examples right away). People are yearning for nourishment that the ukelele-and-smiling-faces culture does not provide despite how well-funded it is. People want reassurement, to relate to something they dislike in themselves, or find shameful, or feel nobody else is dealing with. They want art which seems to e made for the sake of advocating beauty, rather than as a sales pitch from a foolish or naive writer who isn't willing to take the risk. Learn to understand who you are, what you are capable of, how you view the world, what flaws you have, how life is beyond the facade that the media and so on want you to see. Learn to hate forms of art or culture that are popular and understand why you hate them, and don't seek to replicate them no matter how apparently wealthy it will make you.

As for ideas, keep reading, observing, experiencing, feeling and thinking. I read a novel recently called I'm Thinking of Ending Things (made into a great movie recently) and it introduced to me an approach to writing which really excited me and a story I both related to and enjoyed on a higher, intellectual level. That kind of thing makes life worth living, regardless of the rest.

>> No.16947909

>>16947895
>Learn to hate forms of art or culture that are popular

If they are bad that is.

>> No.16947927

>>16947895
>Art is inherently transgressive
Not this meme again...
>inb4 /pol/tard
No, you're just a living dinosaur still stuck in the modernist mindset well after its demise. Transgressivity for its own sake is just the deathrattle of a desperate culture sensing its own exhaustion and demise. Not all transgressions are bad, but shocking for the sake of shocking people have been done to death.

>> No.16947945

>>16947478
>>16947395
Don't listen to shroomers. I can't help but feel it'll just be another form of soma. I'm not saying don't take it, but don't be one of those losers who does it before trying to make something of his life first.

Go for a walk across Europe if it's really what you want to do. You'll regret not doing it. Also talk to people irl more. Help people where you can.

>> No.16947958

>>16947945
>Don't listen to shroomers. I can't help but feel it'll just be another form of soma.
You're so hestitant talking about it because it's clear you've never taken them.

Also completely missed the point of soma being an obvious opoid reference except without the physiological dependency issues.

>> No.16947965

>>16947395
Doing psychedelics when you are depressed is risky and I would not recommend.

>> No.16947977

>>16947965
Hence the "if you've nothing to lose" preface bromigo. Was kinda the first words I wrote.

>> No.16947992

>>16947702
Develop as a person, find something to say, find a reason to say it and find someone to say it to. That's all.
>>16947909
>If they are bad that is.
They are bad, anon.
>>16947927
Depends on how you define "transgressive". You can be transgressive without being "shocking". In the absence of an overarching, sacred tradition, a huge proportion of good art will be "transgressive".

>> No.16948017

>>16947945
>>16947958
Wasn't Huxley actually a proponent of psychedelics?

>> No.16948050

>>16947958
No, I said it'll be just another form of soma in the sense that you take the happy drug and bam now you're contwnt with your life again.

It rewires your brain to kind of see yourself as not really being that important. You kinda become an object, you feel like a single lego brick in a box of legos. It kinda kills your ego. You just either become content with your lot in life or you kill yourself because you realise how insignificant you are. The best thing you'll get from it is a sense of empathy. I'm sick of every druggo discussing his "profound" realisations he had on shrooms or LSD, acting like people don't come to such realisations without it (nothing a druggo has told me has been news to me, oh really you don't say I'm not the only observer, bravo retard).

Remember LSD was made by the CIA and there's a good reason it still exists today. Have fun being another government puppet.

>> No.16948082

>>16948017
Yes he was, and if you read island you'll know that his views on them are that you shouldn't just go straight into taking them before working on yourself first. This is where shroomers deviate, they just take the drug without ever doing any work on themselves and they become smelly, insufferable, lazy sods. In general, anyone who advocates you take drugs is a loser who wants more losers in the world so he doesn't feel as bad about himself.

>> No.16948384

>>16948050
Nice post, glowie

>> No.16948412

>>16947378
Ralph Waldo Emerson is perfect for this sort of situation. Seriously, read his essays.

>> No.16948428

>>16947378
You can try ayahuasca then dmt then ayahuasca in Amsterdam and start yourself off right

>> No.16948433

>>16948384
Those CIA niggers are learning the lingo
They know what "glowie" means and they're trying to turn it against us. Just wait til they hear about the term "alphabet boys", they'll lose their shit

>> No.16948462
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16948462

Reminder, true despair comes from not having any money. If you're poor, you are always going to be miserable. If you are giving someone $1000 (often more) a month for rent, you are going to be miserable. Most people are miserable. They just cope with consoomer shit and cooming and relationships, meanwhile they ignore they'll need to work 50 hours a week. You can only ever be free if you dont need to worry about money or working again.

>> No.16948469

>>16947589
Hallucinogens can help you be more with yourself for a bit, and while that happens you may come to some understandings that, due to being depressed or whatever, you hadn’t come to before. The thing about it is that those thoughts/feelings with positive effects last much after the trip, and that’s very different to what you describe as being the case with weed. It’s risky though. But if you want to try it it might help

>> No.16948866

>>16947395
Get the fuck out of my board

>> No.16948915

>>16947378
What about your family? Don't you want to take care of your Mom and Dad?

>> No.16949403

>>16948866
>Get the fuck out of my board
did not know you owned this board! WOW!
It's a pleasure to meet you. Nice to know that the owner contributes so much to threads!
go kill yourself :]

>> No.16949994

>>16947378
Please do it, you'll fuck, make out get drunk and all that. Use the couchsurfing app to meet people to hang out with. Please go for it it's the best thing you can do. 3 months is okay , but you'll have to be more social and stuff like that. If you won't stop being an emo it's better to stay home

>> No.16950033

>>16949994
>taking a trip in europe during lockdown

>> No.16950050

>>16947395
I’M GONNA SHROOOOOM! AAAAAHH OH GOD I’M SHROOMING

>> No.16950058

I would recommend you read The Problem of the Puer Aeternus by Marie Louis von Franz, in addition to Robert Bly's Iron John. Hope these two help.

>> No.16950118

Read “Johnny Got His Gun”. It will probably help put some perspective on your current situation. It’s often touted as being really depressing, but once you get past the bleak premise, it’s actually quite an uplifting and inspiring book for the most part. I first read it 10 years ago when I felt like I was at rock bottom, and it really made me feel a lot less shitty about my situation.

>> No.16950236

>>16947395
ppl hating on this post too much and its clear that several of you don't know what you're talking about. Psychedelic drugs can be risky but if you're wasting your life because you have no motivation to apply yourself towards any long-term goals and no idea how to acquire that motivation a psychedelic trip might provide a helpful shock to the system. You could combine it with the travel idea, go travel around Europe and do psychedelics there, that's a good adventure for someone who is in a funk.