An egoist's ambivalent attitude to the public

[Anonymous No.17314767]

How am I supposed to write anything when I have no confidence in the future of my culture, or belief in anything outside myself?

To write for the public, you have to disguise your egoism. A novel can't be about how your self-insert got rich, evaded all taxes, assembled a harem, and got away with murder. Not even people who want those things would be interested in such arid wish-fulfilment. Unless it was some kind of guidebook, but if I could write one of those, then wouldn't need to write a novel.

A novel has to be about not having what you want, but if I started from there, I'd just be writing about someone who wanted to make money from writing novels and was too arrogant to stoop to doing young adult romance with love triangles. My actual life is barren and void, and this was the case in 2019 - it was a source of amusement to me how little my life changed last year. I have no curiosity about others, feel no common ground with them, don't see them going down a good path; I don't want to write about people I disagree with so violently about everything.

But despite this alienation, I don't want to pander to them. Some foolish part of me hopes I could be understood or have common ground with others, and that writing some debased and pandering piece of genre fiction would ruin my chances for friendship with such people, even though I haven't seen any evidence for their existence.

Do you have anything to say about my malignant autism?

[Anonymous No.17314786]

>>17314767
You're mixing up egoism with narcissism

[Sage No.17314797]

>>17314767
Yawn

[Anonymous No.17314836]

>>17314767
Sounds like you have nothing to say anon. People who think like you go out and make money, not write books.
Honestly I would not read anything you have to say. I read books because my soul longs for something higher than to serve my egoism. That doesn't fulfill anyone. We're obviously not satisfied by the same things that satisfies animals, and the search for what that is is what moves people towards literature and the arts in general.

[Anonymous No.17314988]

>>17314786
Possibly. Are narcissists just vain, or are they delusional about their talents?

>>17314836
I have plenty to say, but nothing that can be printed. Maybe my worldview could have been taken for granted during the Roman period. I'm kind of an Ovidian type, albeit with more of a cruel streak.

The main literary artform of our times is the novel, which is obliged to be set in the present day, with the main characters being of the same nationality as the author. Historical novels are considered fancy dress genre pieces by the kind of people whose good opinion I'd like to have. Although I wonder if I should want it at all.

So the question is: do I give the public what they hate, make no money, and be ignored by critics? Or do I give the critics what they want and make no money and feel like my stomach is about to dissolve itself in its own acid? Or do I give the public what they want, make money, and kill myself on behalf of the critics? Etc.

[Anonymous No.17315121]

>>17314988
>I'm kind of an Ovidian type, albeit with more of a cruel streak.
KEK. Get out from up your own ass and maybe you might see something worth to say.

[Anonymous No.17315213]

>>17315121
I suppose this is my point. Common readers want morality, critics want morality. You don't quite say it, but you want me to wag my finger at someone and enjoin them to behave in a more selfless way. Maybe I should write about how social media is a waste of productive time; apparently that would be of worth.

I'd rather set my work in a time period where things are more arbitrary. I don't want my characters to have jobs or ideals or bucket lists or anything miserable like that. Unfortunately, the mythological past is a non-starter; a historical novel would be the closest I could get to that blank canvas.

[Anonymous No.17315285]

>>17315121
>Common readers want morality, critics want morality.
All literature is about saying something about right and wrong, in a beautiful way. In a way it's sort of a search for both truth and beauty.
The fact that you noticed this has a lot to say about your observational capacity, but honestly, spiritually you are a mess. Yes, you do need to become more selfless. It's humanizing, and that's what you need.

[Anonymous No.17315293]

>>17315285
Meant for >>17315213

[Anonymous No.17315308]

>egoism
Peak delusion. Atman = Brahman. We’re all one breh

[Anonymous No.17315450]

>>17315285
I'd say what's good and what isn't, but the wrong side of the debate has won the forum, and now evil is defined as having good traits that others lack. Being rich is evil, being athletic is evil - unless you can prove you worked hard and didn't get such things genetically, etc. But why would the fruits of nature be evil in themselves?

I don't even like nature that much, but it's the best analogy I can think of. Earlier periods of history were wilder. I don't want to write about modern poodles and their problems. My difficulty is that I am not much better than they are. That world is also foreign to me.

[Anonymous No.17315539]

>>17315450
>Being rich is evil, being athletic is evil
Nah. They are not evil in and on themselves. It's the adoration of these that's evil because it is ultimately an adoration of self.
You correctly noticed the following: humans have this deep seated gut feeling that the self is the root of our evil, and that selflessness is the solution.
That's why so many people throughout history longed to die in wars for their country or whatever. It's this deep desire for selfless self-sacrifice for a greater good that we have.
Check out this excerpt of Orwell's review of Mein Kampf to get an idea of this reality of human psychology:
>Also he has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all ‘progressive’ thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin’s militarised version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people ‘I offer you a good time,’ Hitler has said to them ‘I offer you struggle, danger and death,’ and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.

[Anonymous No.17315752]

>>17315539
This is very close to my line of thinking, (I'll be reading all of that review,) except that I'm not even able to pretend that I have political goals. My youthful days of dreaming of living in bombed out ruins are gone; I like hot water and fillet steak now, and the frustration of the impossibility of those goals leads me to prefer crime, or at least the kind of low-risk crime that im capable of. Crime on the individual level is the microcosm of war on the racial level as it was pursued by the Noble Wolf. The proceeds can fund my progeny just as well, and the smallness of it has its advantages; it means I can go against the current of history where nations are doomed to be towed along. It does lack the aesthetic of doom, though. The sheer pleasure of ruins. But for me, it's more that devastation and a depopulated landscape mirrors me better than images of happiness do. Then there is no contradiction between myself and my surroundings. If I had everything I wanted, I'd still be tempted to burn it to the ground.

> The Prince is descended from casteless Deccani bandits who, when they acquired political power, surrendered a lakh of rupees to the pundits in exchange for caste privileges. The treasures they amassed remain in the state treasury, objects of almost religious awe, guarded by a special group of retainers. For the ruling house these treasures are a private delectation, a reminder of the past; it is unthinkable that they should be used to improve the impoverished state.
> The Prince is opposed to progress. He states the view quite bluntly; and when the British decide to build a dam in territory adjacent to the state, he persuades his aboriginal subjects who live in the area to be affected to vote against the scheme. The Prince gives five annual scholarships, each worth £70, to deserving boys.
> On himself he is more lavish. He has two palaces, thirty motorcars and annual pocket money of £70,000. To spend £1,500 to bring down a courtesan from Simla is as nothing. He has much time to devote to his hobbies. He is an excellent shot and a fearless tracker of wounded tigers. ‘I am rich and well-born,’ he says, quoting the Gita. ‘Who else is equal to me?’ He matches words with action.
> When the nationalists of the state occupy the administration building in 1947 he goes in alone, ignoring the crowd, and hauls down the Indian flag. He is unable to accommodate himself to the handsome terms of the Home Ministry in Delhi, and when he sees that it is too late to save his state and his powers he is heartbroken. He does not rage or weep. Quoting that line of the Gita, he goes out unarmed after a wounded tiger and is killed. He was rich and high; he has fallen. It is a medieval concept of tragedy.

[Anonymous No.17316029]

>>17315752
>the frustration of the impossibility of those goals leads me to prefer crime, or at least the kind of low-risk crime that im capable of.
What you mean by this? What kind of crimes do you do and in what way do they satisfy this desire you have?
>Crime on the individual level is the microcosm of war on the racial level as it was pursued by the Noble Wolf.
War on the racial level has the appeal of being a self-sacrifice for something higher and bigger than the self. Serving the self does not have the same appeal. Does this not bother you?
>But for me, it's more that devastation and a depopulated landscape mirrors me better than images of happiness do. Then there is no contradiction between myself and my surroundings.
What do you think is the origin of this desire?
>This is very close to my line of thinking, (I'll be reading all of that review,)
Have you read the review? What are your thoughts about it?

[Anonymous No.17316078]

>>17314767
get a job and actually interact with people. Alternatively, you can hop trains and hang out with criminals like the old masters used to do; get into adventures in order to gain inspiration. If you were as detached from the world as you imply then you would find the average simpleton funny and quaint.

[Anonymous No.17316265]

>>17316029
Can't really talk about those for the same reason I can't write about them, but they're nothing impressive. Just a welter of fraud and really suspicious patterns of travel, visa misuse, habitual use of pseudonyms, pretending to be from neighbouring countries to mine, absolute horror of social media as being something that could reveal my contradictions, loathing for all forms of personal ID including phone numbers, a continuous state of multiple infidelity, preference for cash and cryptocurrency over anything involving "banks," a word that I utter with the same disgust as others would reserve for "gulags," some informal buying and selling of prescription drugs, etc. Anyone with a sufficiently non-existent sense of shame could do these things.

They satisfy my desire for independence and power, especially the desire not to be known. My accent is very hard to place and this gives me indescribable pleasure.

Serving myself also means serving my extended family, my cousins, and my future children, most of whom are likely to be illegitimate. Do I already have an illegitimate child in a certain country? I don't use social media, so it's kind of murky. A weird anxiety that only men can experience.

If I do well for myself, I can give my relatives a good name. But the thought of being known by my real name sets my teeth on edge.

Couldn't say where the desire for devastation comes from. Isn't a desert similar to space, futurelessness similar to eternity?

I like the review, wish it were ten times longer. He has a clear view of the Wolf.