For much of my life I've rejected what I saw as the empty careerism of my peers...

For much of my life I've rejected what I saw as the empty careerism of my peers. While my friends and classmates were padding their resumes to gain admission into the finest universities and to attain the most prestigious jobs, I chose to dedicate my time to art and intellectualism. I felt that life was best spent trying to understand and appreciate mankind's greatest ideas and its most powerful expressions. While my classmates labored away at internships, I read Pynchon and Kafka; while my friends studied for the bar exam and medical school, I independently studied history and philosophy; instead of thinking long and hard about my career path, I listened to Zappa and Stravinsky, and watched art films; etc.

However, now that this is all said and done, I lol at my friends, many of whom are making tangible accomplishments in their field, and I look at myself, still working part-time at a grocery store, living with mom and dad, and I feel so unaccomplished. I don't necessarily regret the life I've chosen; I still firmly believe that art and ideas have furnished my life in significant, if ineffable, ways. I just want to feel like I'm doing something, that I'm making a contribution. But I don't know what to do, what to contribute.

Are there any literary works that explore similar ideas, that may aid me or someone in a similar situation?

You dun goofed user. I'm the guy constantly posting academia-media-publishing industrial complex. Veeky Forums is their lackies.

All they will tell you to do is to buy more books, read read read. You want to go outside to experience the human condition first hand? No, read! Read everything they tell you to!

Well what would you recommend? Reading is all I know, it seems to me.

>I just want to feel like I'm doing something

you don't think you'd be feeling the same thing if you were exploiting the labor of the proletariat for a nicer watch?

>Are there any literary works that explore similar ideas, that may aid me or someone in a similar situation?

oblomov

I'm sure I would be, but there has to be more options than my current predicament and your scenario, right?

>oblomov

On my list but thanks

Sure dude, the only thing that comes with a job better than bagging groceries is a "nicer watch."

I'm really convinced to read all day, thanks man!

whatever dude go shill on youtube, no one cares here

Shill for what? Not working at a grocery store? I hope he turns his life around

I took a similar path but I also read a bunch of edgy stuff in my time so I realise 'significance', 'doing something', and 'making a contribution' are the most naive of haunted memetics.

I also don't work.

These things are the key to success at this lifestyle.

why didn't you just follow their path? For a man dedicated to 'intellectualism' you could have no-effort aced HS while also reading books and listening to music art films etc on the side, gone to college to study whatever you wanted, continue to also pursue whatever on the side, then go to law school, make money, enjoy your life.

Like you sacrificed a great deal for "more free time" but you had to work so you sacrificed it for basically nothing?

I also read lots of edgy stuff and felt that way for a while, but recently these 'spooks' have begun to creep up on me.

I did ace HS, get a great scholarship to a decent university, and study the fields that interested me most. I did all of these without paying much consideration to a real career, partially because I knew I'd be graduating essentially debt-free. I didn't 'follow their path' because I thought it would leave me empty and unfulfilled, which it may well have, but now I'm starting to feel that way regardless.

If you want to immerse yourself in art while still having the feeling of accomplishment, why not write something yourself?

I've tried this. I was actually pretty pleased with one of my attempts, but everything else just seemed so inauthentic, as if I was writing not because I had anything to say, but for the sake of saying I had written something.

>tfw you reach full nihilism and realize the only viable point of life is just getting ahead, promoting your genes via offspring and securing your material wealth to provide for your children and promote your ideas in society via money

>you also realize everybody else already knew this while you were reading a whole bunch of books to get to the same point

Damn it! He was supposed to figure it out himself!

>i read a lot
>im not happy
>what to read to overcome this feel
fucking idiot
why are you laughing at your friends that are working and making money and being an independent member of society? They are helping themselves and their families, and making sure that they can have a life for a long time
you are doing nothing

try going to school, go to college and get a degree. Then go and get a job, something that you enjoy, and that pays.
Stop leeching of of your mom and dad you fucking scrub
how are you ever going to have a wife like that?

I think this is the answer you seek.

Most people need to work to feel satisfied with life. "Work" in the sense of "this is my work," not bagging groceries and continuing to read in your free time

>working and making money and being an independent member of society
Mein gott.

>but recently these 'spooks' have begun to creep up on me.
Sometimes I get a light touch of the spooks too but then I visualise what it would be like to actually live a normie life based on them. I imagine the series of alarm clock awakenings, the rushed morning shit, the commute, the mandatory socialising with people only put in your vicinity by economical pragmatism, dragging yourself along to more obligations on the weekend et cetera, imagining the days and weeks and months and years of this with no end in sight, and all this torture in the service of some arbitrary idea more elusive than the last ephemeral wisp of cigar smoke at Hippel's wine bar after closing while you could just be enjoying yourself as you please, unbothered by obligation and ordeal.

It's simply not worth the bother unless you're a firm believer, and anyone who has read enough can never really be a firm believer again, having been exposed to too many contradictory viewpoints to ever fully accept one of them unsceptically.

I am not laughing at my friends, if anything I'm dissatisfied with myself for having laughed at them in the past. I went to college, I have a degree. Did you even read the thread? This is a literature board, friend. Try not to post if you don't have decent reading comprehension abilities.

>not living the literary lifestyle while also studying useful things
LITERAL pleb tier

The wageslave life you've described doesn't sound fulfilling, but neither is reading and watching films all day. I agree with in that i need to find "my work" to be fulfilled, but I cannot figure out what that is. As much as I love reading, writing doesn't seem to be the solution.

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse made me feel better when I chose liberal arts over a more lucrative college major. That book eventually led me to Chinese and Japanese poetry - Li Bai, Cold Mountain, and Ryokan in particular. They, among others, were monks who wandered and lived in penury while writing lyrical masterpieces. Cold Mountain in particular just wrote his stuff all over rocks. I can't think of anything better than that. Appreciation of art with no regard for money, fame, permanence, prestige....

What are some of your favorite books and films OP?

it's impossible for almost anyone to live a tolerable life. either you were born rich and attractive, or you're destined for a terrible, depressing, meaningless unfulfilling life and there's nothing you can do about it. your life it totally determined the moment you're born.

I suspect that a lot of people don't have a single special 'work' that brings them long term fulfilment. The ones that do have a grand artistic 'work' are generally unfulfilled and perpetually unsatisfied with their output and always striving.

You'd probably have a better shot with a vegetable garden or something than a novel if you're looking for a type of rewarding, cosy well being as the result of your activities.

Miraculous power and marvelous activity
Drawing water and chopping wood.

And such.

Will look into some of these poets, thanks.

I really admire Kafka, Ballard, Beckett, Lovecraft, and Burroughs. Moby Dick is one of my favorites as well, but I have yet to read any more Melville. Regarding filmmakers, Lynch, Leone, Ford, De Palma, and Miike are among my favorites.

Sometimes I suspect this is true, but it's worth the fight, no? Actually maybe not.

Might be worthwhile, thanks.

>law school
>make money
This is one of the problems with "following their path," btw. If you follow the same path as every soulless schlub who just wants a good salary, the market will likely be saturated by the time you leave school (see pharmacists, computer programmers, etc.).