>be me
>shipping a book to a friend
>post office worker asks “what’s the value of the contents in the box”
>hesitate for a moment
>lump in throat
>think of the intrinsic value of the book
>think of everything i’ve learned from this one book
>think of every character, every flaw they had, each philosophical anecdote that made me pause
>did i learn anything from this book?
>worry if i absorbed the book at all
>worry i didn’t change at all
>”sir?”
>”f-five or ten dollars”
tfw
Stop worrying about your insight and intelligence so much, just try to find genuine interest.
>be me
>shipping manuscript to a publisher
>post office worker asks "what's the value of the contents in the box"
>hesitate for a moment
>"Oh it's just the manuscript for the novel I've written. It's a literary fiction piece, rendered in the postmodernist style, a la Pynchon or David Foster Wallace."
>postal worker smiles at me
>"So it's worthless?"
>blink in shock
>"Excuse me?"
>"It has no value, correct?"
>"Y-yeah I g-guess so, monetarily at least."
>He laughs
>"Of course, monetarily."
What the fuck
Actually keked.
Pwnt
>be me
>shitposting on Veeky Forums with my friends
>decide to add a Pepe image to complete the package
>go to send my shitposting
>Captcha asks me "are you a robot?"
>reflect on the nature of my shitty post
>examine it's non-unique, automated characteristics and evaluate it beside previous shitposts
>begin to see the pattern of robotic, humourless, repetitive spins on unfunny members ranging from Jordan Peterson to pictures of fat bugs bunny
>"...are you a robot?"
>decide that yes, I am an unthinking, impulse-driven device that operates only to perform repetitive tasks
>decide that henceforth I will no longer robotically shitpost and instead endeavour to make all of my contributions to lit creative ones
>choose not to click the captcha, choose not to send my valueless shitpost
Tfw
>tfw no discernible value
Nice.
>be me
>shipping 76-page letter to my favorite author detailing how much his works have affected my life and writing
>20-something post office worker asks "who are you shipping such a long letter to?"
>stammer, stare at the floor
>"I-it's f-f-f-or my favorite author Gene Wolfe"
>postal worker laughs
>"So you don't even know this guy?"
>voice cracks
>"Uh, h-haha, yeah, but but I love his B-book of the New Sun series"
>"That's pretty gay dude, I didn't even know people read paper books anymore."
mfw
0/10 ruining a nice thread
yet here it is
>tfw no discernible resolution
Is there a book for this feel?
anything by paulo coelho
>be me
>see qt reading a book
>ask her what books shes reading
>she tells me
>its a book I've never heard of
>tell her that I've never heard of it
>she tells me its good
>i say good bye and leave
byee
Feels like getting touched by warm fuzzy rays of sunlight early in class and then getting abruptly pulled back into reality by some fat autist shutting the blinds because he gets glare on his SchmuckBook.
>almost finished reading dead souls
>more and more missing parts
>slowly acknowledging what I thought would be my favourite novel isn't even finished
>still haven't finished so I can pretend I won't be disappointed
>cannot finish a novel on middle-school curriculum in Russia
Is this some other "Dead Souls" you're talking about?
shit i laughed at this
I don't understand how people with such poor reading comprehension can be so condescending
Sorry, I attributed "missing parts" and "not finished" to poor English and personal reading troubles, not literal autism of viewing deliberate authorial intent as "being incomplete and unfinished".
Gold.
Yet there it is, stark, frogless, not even slightly similar to what he described and obviously, it pissed (You) off. Back to whichever containment board you slipped out of.
>be me
>get to know this college girl who always takes the same bus I do
>find out she's lit major
>ask her for recommendations
>she tells me to read Steinbeck
>tell her I tried once but wasn't my thing
>she starts taking a different bus
>never see her again
Don't judge me, fucking pseuds
How kafka-esque
no bullying
10.0
best new meme
>he thinks the dead souls we read today is intentionally incomplete
>doesn't realize that Steinbeck is code that every functioning literary type with a life that flourishes uses to gauge whether the person they are talking to likes good and beautiful things even though they are simple, such as Steinbeck, or are firmly in the camp of literary frogposters and ressentiment-driven losers who like Houllebecq, Notes from Underground and Celine.
kek'd
Steinbeck sucks
dumb frogposter.
How to spot someone who hasn't read Steinbeck
not an argument
>be me, socially isolated creep, people avoid me if they can
>never sit on the bus so I don't have to share the seats with strangers
>one time bus is empty so I sit to read 19Q4, just started
>next stop, a guy who is seriously autistic (really looks like it , seen him a few times, has a child's face and just keeps smiling and avoiding eye contact) sits on the seat opposite to mine, so we're face to face
>asks me, smiling like a goof: 'What are you reading?'
>I answer - 'I'm not sure how to pronounce this', and I show him the book
>his smile widens: 'Aha ok', and I'm creeped out
>catch him staring at me in the window reflection a few times
What happened
I've never had people talk to me like that and this one time it's this creepy
I grew up in Steinbeck's town so there were many books we had to read for hs. Strangely the ones i enjoyed most weren't mandatory reading.
What have you read of his?
You mean IQ84? That story's kinda cute user.