/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3412481]

do you read at work? what do you read at work?

I have an office job with quite a bit of downtime where I just surf the net...what should I read at work?

[Anonymous No.3412486]

>2013
>working

Get it together, Tyrone

[Anonymous No.3412490]

>>3412486

>being a jobless manchild taking useless college courses

ishiggidy u dont do dis Shaniqua

[Anonymous No.3412493]

Working? Jesus Christ, how horrifying. I feel sorry for you, OP.

[Anonymous No.3412499]

I hope I never experience the pain of 'gainful employment.'

[Anonymous No.3412500]

>>3412493

I felt the same way but it's not bad anymore, pretty chill, plus money is nice :)

[Anonymous No.3412505]

>Not having rich parents who pay for you to lounge around all day and read.

[Anonymous No.3412514]

Reading at work?

"I shiggy diggy"
-Voltaire

[Anonymous No.3412539]

>>3412505
My nigga!

I don't work, but I do read. Currently reading Robert K. Massie's Peter the Great. I'm a sucker for non-fiction!

[Anonymous No.3412545]

so everyone on lit basically lives with their parents or is on welfare?

no chance of being interesting writers then

[Anonymous No.3412547]

>>3412545
I get paid to go to school

>tfw socialist paradise

[Anonymous No.3412554]

>>3412545
I'm employed by moot to respond to trolls so they feel validated and superior.

[Anonymous No.3412573]

>>3412545
Agreed, this is a bleak epiphany.
There is nothing more valuable in life than an honest day's work; it's a foreign concept to most of those who disagree.

[Anonymous No.3412578]

>>3412573
>There is nothing more valuable in life than an honest day's work; it's a foreign concept to most of those who disagree.

That's what capitalism wants you to believe. Whatever pleasure you derive from it is the result of an incessantly imposed ideological agenda which aims to perpetuate itself by making your acknowledgement of work seem inevitable or 'natural'.

[Anonymous No.3412580]

>>3412573

>There is nothing more valuable in life than an honest day's work

If you happen to work for something or somebody you care about then yes that's true.

[Anonymous No.3412584]

>>3412547
>tfw too rich to claim EMA

[Anonymous No.3412586]

>>3412578
Have you ever had your own garden or built something to use for yourself or someone else (e.g. a treehouse or a swing set)? That's something that will not benefit you monetarily but you will feel a real sense of accomplishment upon completion.

Capitalism and/or propaganda has nothing to do with that feeling.

[Anonymous No.3412592]

>>3412578
When marx wanted the workers to own the means of production, it wasnt so they could nap at their workstations and play shuffleboard on the factory floors. If an honest days work isn't worth anything, then how does the price of labor determine value?

[Anonymous No.3412600]

>>3412545
>so everyone on lit basically lives with their parents or is on welfare?

Yup. I am 31 years old and still live at home. I have a masters degree in English, but prefer to stay in bed all day masturbating and using the internet. I feel safe and warm in my bed and have no desire to leave it other than twice a day when my meals are ready. Don't judge me, I'm happy.

[Anonymous No.3412613]

>>3412578
Please stop referring to capitalism as an entity, you don't comprehend the extent to which it hurts your argument.

>>3412586
This about sums up what I was going to follow up with. Namely, the garden. Work insofar as pay is concerned is laughable today. I.e. desk jobs, fast food, sales, hospitality, manufacturing (if first world countries even do that anymore) don't leave the individual with any pride or fulfillment. Maybe I'm alone here, wouldn't surprise me.

[Anonymous No.3412614]

>>3412592
>implying an honest day's work at this juncture in time doesn't create alienation
Don't conflate alienated and unalienated work
>>3412586
This has nothing to do with the concept of an honest day's work and the satisfaction you get for sitting in an office jotting numbers down

[Anonymous No.3412623]

>Working

[Anonymous No.3412633]

>>3412614
Okay, what's wrong with alienation? I thought you young people today wore your alienation as a badge of honor or a mark of validity or something. Wouldnt you consider it worse to NOT be alienated?

[Anonymous No.3412643]

>>3412633
>Wouldnt you consider it worse to NOT be alienated?

Why would I?

[Anonymous No.3412650]

>>3412643
To not be alienated means to accept and embrace the aspects of modern culture that turn most of us into wage-earners and toilers for the direct or indirect benefit of others.

Not very edgy.

[Anonymous No.3412679]

>>3412650
>to accept and embrace the aspects of modern culture that turn most of us into wage-earners

Those people are alienated

[Anonymous No.3412681]

>>3412623
right?

[Anonymous No.3412689]

>>3412679
I'll bite: alienated from what?

[Anonymous No.3412693]

>>3412545
Nope. I played a ton of online poker with my student loans, then invested it in low risk bonds. I essentially get an allowance from my broker every 3 months now. I haven't worked in 2 years.

Feels new money man.

[Anonymous No.3412694]

>>3412689
his or her humanity

[Anonymous No.3412705]

>>3412694
>his or her humanity

how does that even work? I go out and dig in the garden for eight hours and this alienates me form my humanity in some way? Or does it only work if someones is paying me? Or if I make my nephew do it?

[Anonymous No.3412715]

>>3412705
only when you invariably lose the ability to determine your life and destiny, when deprived of the right to think (conceive) of yourself as the director of your actions; to determine the character of said actions; to define your relationship with other people; and to own the things and use the value of the goods and services, produced with your labour. Although you are an autonomous, self-realised human being, as an economic entity, you are directed to goals and diverted to activities that are dictated by the bourgeoisie, who own the means of production

[Anonymous No.3412738]

>>3412715
I'm the Bourgeoisie. I own the means of production. I'm a kulak, if you will, a NEPman if you want to see it that way. and so are a hell of a lot of people in the world. True, we have no choice but to market our skills, but where, how, to whom, what skills and for what price is entirely between us and the market. How is this a bad thing, or alienating?

[Anonymous No.3412792]

I used to have the most boring dead end office job in the history of mankind.

Literally, all I did was reading in a notepad window in the lower left corner of my monitor while I had the work program in a large window on the background, should my boss walk in, he wouldn't notice I was rearing. I used to read about 1.7 books a day for four moths.

Needless to say, I no longer work there, I quit because I didn't want to end like my braindead, spirit broken, mediocre coworkers, and the pay wasn't that good anyway. I'm still in the glory of unemployment.

[Anonymous No.3412807]

>>3412738
You probably know Hegel.
The master's self-consciousness is dependent on the slave for recognition and also has a mediated relation with nature: the slave works with nature and begins to shape it into products for the master. As the slave creates more and more products with greater and greater sophistication through his own creativity, he begins to see himself reflected in the products he created, he realises that the world around him was created by his own hands, thus the slave is no longer alienated from his own labour and achieves self-consciousness, while the master on the other hand has become wholly dependent on the products created by his slave; thus the master is enslaved by the labour of his slave. The realisation of this contradiction allows the slave to once again struggle against his master.
THE PROLETARIAT WILL RISE

[Anonymous No.3412816]

>>3412792

Develop 'depression' and claim welfare. That's what I do. The government pays my rent and bills for my minimal cosy little apartment, and I get to spend all day writing my scathing critique of contemporary society.

[sage No.3412827]

>>3412816
Actually, I live with my parents and am going to college (again) to start a new carrier.

[Anonymous No.3412841]

>>3412816
I-Ignatius?

[Anonymous No.3412847]

>>3412816
I'd love to do this but the problem is I'm too depressed/generally fucked-up to leave the house and apply for regular welfare, let alone get diagnosed and shit. Fuck you man, that's my money you're spending

[Anonymous No.3412852]

>>3412807
the proletariat already rose. they are the consumers now, to a far greater degree, paradoxically, than they ever were producers.

V should have said " A customer shouldn't fear his retailer, the retailer should fear his customers." and they do.

[Anonymous No.3412860]

>>3412852
I know, and it hurts me

[Anonymous No.3413629]

>>3412545
Where do you get the idea that only wage slaves can write worthwhile literature? People of leisure are responsible for most of the greatest literature. From Plato to Montaigne to Baudelaire to Burroughs, these guys didn't exactly have nine to fives.

>>3412573
>There is nothing more valuable in life than an honest day's work; it's a foreign concept to most of those who disagree.
It's a foreign concept to me because I've spend 40 hour weeks working menial manual labour working in horrible warehouses. Aside from the minimum wage I collected, all it brought me was injuries and despair. People who romanticise work are rarely working class and for good reason.

Working, to most people, is just plain shit. And for a lot of us, it's so shitty that the math doesn't work out in favour of it even against a life of crime, institutionalisation or suicide. I'm glad I escaped it and I don't plan on ever returning to it, however despicable a leech others might find me. I'd rather be covered in the spit of contempt than the sweat of my brow.

[Anonymous No.3413641]

>>3413629
>. I'd rather be covered in the spit of contempt than the sweat of my brow.
noice

[Anonymous No.3414367]

>>3412816
How?

[Anonymous No.3414389]

>>3413629
Agreed. Hell, if there's anything that literary figures frequently have in common it's that they tend to be irresponsible and sort of lazy. Everyone from Baudelaire getting deep in debt from all the hookers and opium to Steinbeck fucking up at Stanford and leaving to take shitty jobs while clearly putting his real effort into writing.

Being a good worker =/= being a good writer.

[Anonymous No.3414529]

>>3412573
>There is nothing more valuable in life than an honest day's work

I've worked long enough at a call center and a restaurant to seriously question that. There is meaningful, fulfilling work out there; I just haven't encountered it yet.

A cushy job set up through a relative doesn't count though, if that's your case (which, for some reason, I'm led to believe through your tone).

[Anonymous No.3414532]

>>3412816
>The government pays my rent and bills for my minimal cosy little apartment

Fuck, I want in on this sweet, sweet gravy train. Where do you live?

I can't wait until Obama transforms this moldering bit of nation into a socialist paradise.

[Anonymous No.3414537]

>>3414389
But Wallace Stevens was an insurance executive.

[Anonymous No.3414538]

>>3413629
>I'm glad I escaped it

That job or working in general? How'd you do it?

Also, has anyone else here read "How To Be Idle" by Tom Hodgkinson? Won it in a raffle recently, easy reading but it culls some interesting info from stuff like Theory of the Leisure Class, etc.

[Anonymous No.3414556]

>>3414537
Yeah, and Steinbeck, like I said, worked shitty jobs, and William Carlos Williams was a doctor, and Baudelaire worked for magazines, and Ginsberg was an advertising person, and so on. They still needed money to live and worked if they couldn't get it elsewhere. That's still pretty far from agreeing with the sentiment that "there is nothing more valuable in life than an honest day's work".

[Anonymous No.3414595]

>>3414532
One of my family members receives $600/mo + food stamps for a mental disability. It's not that hard in our country. It's depressing when I see them.

[Anonymous No.3414612]

>>3414556
wallace seemed to like his job. he worked at it long after he became recognized

[Anonymous No.3414614]

>>3414532
>I can't wait until Obama transforms this moldering bit of nation into a socialist paradise.
>tfw it will never happen because Obama is just another capitalist

[Anonymous No.3414621]

>>3414556
stevens seemed to like his job. he worked at it long after he became recognized.

[Anonymous No.3414645]

>>3414621
Yeah. And Williams admitted that he worked harder at being a poet than a doctor with a bit of embarrassment. That's far from ...

wait ...

this argument has gotten really silly. I'm not participating anymore.

[Anonymous No.3414698]

>>3414614
But didn't you read his critique of that poem? He's totes got Marxist sympathies.

[Anonymous No.3414753]

>>3414698
You know who else has Marxist sympathies? Fucken China and Russia. (Two countries that don't have a social support system on principle.)

[Anonymous No.3415643]

>>3414529
>There is meaningful, fulfilling work out there; I just haven't encountered it yet.
How do you know it's out there? People keep saying this to me. "There's a job you'll love, you just haven't found it, don't give up, you haven't tried everything yet! You're not allowed to complain until you tried med school and law and plumbing as well!" It's just a shitty coping mechanism in our society that allows people to dismiss anti-work sentiment. It always works, since no one has tried everything. It's the exact same belief in magic that leads to that The One idea, that there is a person out there for everyone who is compatible with us and it will just click and happily ever after. But there's no reason to believe this. It's just something people have to make themselves belief in order to function. If there's no perfect job and partner and life in general out there to be discovered, people might get a little uneasy. It's actually a modern form of heaven, placing a reward somewhere in the future in a vague and distant manner that keeps people toiling diligently. I think you have a much better shot at some form of contentedness or happiness if you allow yourself to entertain the thought that maybe there's no such job or person out there for you, not dismissing the idea altogether but not basing all your hopes and wishes on a job you love or a person you love.

[Anonymous No.3415646]

>>3414538
Working in general. I'm on welfare but looking to graduate to disability. I basically went to my doctor and said I needed to see a shrink. I told the shrink how I feel about things (sincerely) and she told me to see another shrink. That shrink told me to see another shrink. I told the welfare people "look, I'm all up in this shrink business waiting and getting tossed around, I'm half mad, give money pls" and they did. I do live in a delicious European welfare state though.

I haven't read that book you mention, but I'm familiar with The idler and some of their stuff online. They seem like a pleasant bunch who've got their priorities right. I believe it was The Idler that lead me to reading some Lin Yutang

[Anonymous No.3415668]

>>3415643
I didn't mean it in that saccharine, sing-songy way, just meant that there is obviously going to be some activity to which you're attracted, and I haven't done anything I was terribly interested in yet.

[Anonymous No.3415676]

>>3412573
Sorry, but I can't help but find most things in life more valuable than standing around making coffee for people.

[Anonymous No.3415678]

>>3412600
You don't feel a crushing loneliness and sense of failure every night as you go to sleep? I'm only 24 and feel it every night because I'm not where I want to be in life yet.

[Anonymous No.3415712]

>>3415668
>just meant that there is obviously going to be some activity to which you're attracted
That is pretty plausible, but why would you assume it's an activity than one can get payed for? Or that the activity won't be ruined by doing it for a living. As HST said, old whores don't do much giggling. It's very plausible that there is no thing that you like to do or do in such a way that other people will give you money for it. In that case, the trick is to get money for nothing so that you can dedicate yourself to the activities to which you are attracted.

>>3415678
Not him, but your exact problem is your lack of contentedness. Where do you want to be, anyway?