How can anyone justify enjoying such a decrepit, untalented simpleton?

he's fine. his books are decent. a couple of his poems i like.

itt is basically "i dont like him cause hes popular" as if pynchon isnt lmao

Please post your writing portfolio.

At least Bukowski had an edge to him.

I don't like Pynchon

Maybe in 1950 he did. Now he's the most basic bitch status quo of millenial sentimental hedonism

pretty much this

you're such a fucking pseud, just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's bad, but i guess you got your (((you)))

Here's one now. Keep telling yourself that being a failed liberal arts grad is "real life" and "in touch"

Dude... alcohol and sex... So deep..... So real

>it's bad if future generations misappropriate it

True

They can't. Also STOP SAYING SIMPLETON YOU AUTISTIC FAGGOTS

Post office was good. bout it.

He is good when you are a teenager. Teens think that drinking, smoking, fucking, and not caring about hat others think is cool. So does Bukowski, but he is also a sad, pathetic piece of shit. He helps dense people discover pity and empathy for losers. He is simple and "edgy" enough to get teens into reading literature.

Could be a lot worse thing for a young minds to enjoy; they could be spending their days watching grownups spout memes while streaming video games. Like we need more people with the emotional range of a chuckling potato.

You can't expect simpletons to justify why they enjoy reading a simpleton.

he romanticized alcoholism and rough-around-the-edges blue collar life

plenty of people want that for bread and butter

I am very curious on your opinion because I am one of those people. I feel like I snapped out of a dream recently. I would love to have more context to better shape myself.

Like man this is embarrassing as all hell but I need to know. This hurts my newly discovered ego. I have been a terrible person for so long.

Snapped out of watching "letsplays"?

Welcome to the club bro. We're all pulling ourselves out of this deep, dark hole America dug for us between 1945 and the present.

The modern world is extremely dark, frenetic and out of touch with basic truths about human life.

Tread carefully, keep moving up. Virgil says to Dante that it gets easier as you go higher and higher.

Snapped out of being a sociopath with the emotional intelligence of an letsplay watcher.

I feel like I am feeling for the first time. I just am trying to embrace it all the best I can now. I was just curious if you could expand on the image of dense people discovering pity and empathy for losers.

Make it bad. I want to take this pain so I can create something later. Be honest please. This is for posterity sake.

Why? I can't stop asking.

A few years ago I had to "snap out" myself. It was not that I couldn't feel anything complex, I just chose not to. I was an avid Magic: the gathering player and I found several YouTube channels that made interesting decks. I watched their backlogs, wasted hours just watching them play MTG. I got into superhero movies and league of legends. All of it were simple, disposable entertainment that didn't emotionally challenge me in any way. I wasn't really happy, or having fun. It didn't lead me to any insight. It was just enough to keep my brain's reward centers occupied.

You want to get better? Seek out movies and books that make you feel emotionally uncomfortable. If it is too hard to watch a bittersweet movie about love, do it. If you didn't experience young love, watch a movie about teenage sexuality. Whatever makes you uncomfortable. If there is a group of people you hate, find something that depicts them sincerely. I know I am talking too much about film on a literature board, but film much easier to get the gist of something while searching for things to watch.

Ignore shit that is just meant to be consumed and instantly forgotten. There is more to feelings than being angry about Trump/SJWs, being sad about >tfw no gf, or chuckling because something is #relatable.

I'm no fucking therapist; best I could do.

>The modern world is extremely dark, frenetic and out of touch with basic truths about human life.

Oh, don't be so dramatic.

I want to say dubs of truth but you hit the nail on the head with the experience. I think about this endlessly and how to break the cyclical nature of it all. But I am all left in this sense of what the fuck now? Is this wonderland? Are you the hatter? The cat? The cards? Am I a card?

Frankly I've gone mad and I think so have you. At last I can enjoy things again.

When did Jordan B Peterson get so old

and when did he grow a beard?

Whenever there's a saturation of talent and technicality, people will get tired and crave mediocrity. That's when authors pop up that become famous and for their crassness and for being "down to earth". That crudeness and straightfowardness becomes the new norm, until there's a saturation of it and sophistication and complexity become popular and "against the current" again.

It's all about people getting bored of whatever's the current status quo.

That's also why this board is now full of literal nazis and smug catholics. Too many years of overbearing liberal atheist does that to a board.

I just want to know what we are describing here. This sounds like it should have a name but nothing comes to mind. Life? Common sense? Fuck man. It all sounds obvious.

I think it is just general malcontent with life, or even depression. Like over-eating, only more "mental" than physical. Voluntarily clouding minds and keeping dopamine up, so to ignore the problem.

Well. Do you think it could have helped in some way then? Being exposed to so much and being able to have a reference for so much I mean certainly would come with a benefit right? If anything it's really nice to just have an outside's opinion on the matter so thank for that post alone.

I am not sure what you meant.

Thanks to writers like Bukowski, literature is seen as a "bohemian" activity followed by depressed degenerates and "free" thinkers.

"Read and fuck with you, under the light of the moon, while drinking wine xdd, so poetic"

oh forgive me. I mean. Do you think we have simply shriveled our brain? Made ourselves in someways less competent--but that there was a trade off?

Like with magic the gathering, I've never played it but I am sure you have a wide array of mythological aspects you could call upon if the topic was brought up.

Basically. You spent so much time being entertained yes? Do you think you could have the resources to entertain others just from that once passionate venture into a card game?

If you say this was depression, and that we broke free, then, could the idiot who has broken free some how relay the secret to the other side? Gosh. I hope I didn't ruin your night getting all pretentious now. I'm just thinking I have some magic key that could help. And every second that ticks by that I am not doing something to pull others out of that rut is killing me. Because being in that rut was much much worse.

I don't think I am competent enough to give others advice how to get out of it. Quite frankly, I think only the "sufferer" himself can do anything. It was never that I didn't realize what I'm doing, but being honest with myself for a long while was too hard. Getting out of the rut requires a lot of effort and willpower (which I've never had much), because you need to fill the silence once you no longer spend hours droning.

The knowledge I gained from playing MTG can mostly be applied when talking about MTG. Sure, it is a fun game, but reading about cards and over planning decks only provided dull, fleeting sort of happiness, yet I still did it. It mostly feels like a lot of wasted time because of the insane amount I spent researching the game, while barely playing it. It allowed me to communicate with my friends without actually talking about anything worthwhile. It is a lot easier to just talk about a game, than coming to discussing what causes personal joy, fears and insecurities.

I've been sitting up way into the night; I hope I helped you out in some way.

Thank you for taking the time to write that out.I 100% agree with you that everything is up to the "sufferer" but my goal is to bait them out and cut the ropes someday. I'm just working on the how right now.

Anyways. I hope the rest of your evening will be spent well. Have a good one.

Little theatrics never hurt anyone. Live a little, act like a goof sometimes. So what, if it seems silly from your cozy reading chair.

It displays one who values frivolous and unserious things while neglecting or being unaware of what is significant in the horror of eternity. All so you can effeminately celebrate your own niggerdom. No, no I won't

You were on a roll until you called that user "dramatic" for seeing the modern world rightfully as a mess

>Thanks to writers like Bukowski, literature is seen as a "bohemian" activity followed by depressed degenerates and "free" thinkers.
Youre an absolute moron if you think literature wasnt already for the privileged and the Bohemian and that Bukowski popularised it.

The only decent thing he wrote was Ham on Rye. Ham on Rye actually had messages past 'drinking and fucking are so alienating'

what is this

and
> Am I living like shit cause I'm alienated or am I alienated cause life is shit
> Why am I pessimistic towards ppl I keep using no wonder I keep thinking that prostitutes are always shitting up my life lawl

But at least he's better than Vonnegut

I like him. Of course he's not high brow. One underestimated facet is the historical value. Its nice to slip into the dirty 50s in ham and rye.

I attempted to read him, but then I got to the line where he talks about his dick shooting out sperm like a whale shooting water out of its blowhole. I just laughed and couldn't take him seriously after that.

This. I don't have much patience for him anymore, but I literally would never have given a single shit about literature if I hadn't read Ham on Rye when I was 13, so I don't get to talk shit.

that's a joke, he's a funny guy

>Ham on Rye actually had messages past 'drinking and fucking are so alienating'
I've read Ham on Rye, what are in your opinion those messages?

i dont like most of what he has said in the past, mainly his lazy ass view on work. but when i read ham on rye, it was therapeutic to read someones miserable life. i dont hate the guy

pure pottery

I enjoyed reading Ham on Rye, the other two books of his that i've read, Post Office and Factotum got old pretty fast.

It's certainly an activity for the privileged. I wasn't clear. What I want to say is that Bukowski romantizes alcoholism, drug addiction and sex degeneration. It doesn't botter me, on literature you can write about whatever. He can be funny to read. The thing than pisses me are his fans. They reduce literature to a medium exclusively designed to talk about liberalism, feminism, alcohol, sex and drugs.