Oldfag Special Snowflake Sanctuary Thread

I can't read actual literature on a smartphone. It's just too annoying. Has to be an actual book.

Somehow I can type like 50 wpm on that shitty onscreen keyboard.

the internet has been a huge net positive. not because of ebooks (i read as much as i can in physical format...just never got used to kindles/ereaders/onscreen) but because of the accessibility of secondary material, annotations, critical/scholarly discussion, etc. that really helped with my understanding and appreciation and enjoyment of literature.

of course it takes some time away from reading because of gaming and such, but i only game/chat with people online for the social aspects which i think is important, so i don't really consider the bulk of it "time wasted."

smartphones are just a convenient way to check facebook/read some articles on 5 minute subway rides. i'm not getting much reading in anyway in those cases, and i have managed to read quite a few filler books (shitty genre fiction, webnovels, etc.) on the phone, so whatever.

i'm overall very happy with technology, but i can see how technology could be bad for some people. but i think you shouldn't blame the tech, should work on your own will and self control desu.

30, Melbourne, Australia.
Just starting Gormenghast. I enjoyed Peake's poetry so I am interested to see if he can make fantasy sing. I normally find it tedious, so it'll be interesting. Before this I read The Acid House because I am Scottish and heading back to the UK for Christmas and New Year's, then hitting Germany to hopefully see some knuckled masonry.

The internet is great for acquiring books and researching purchases, and I am sure it has enabled me to read more widely. But, I wonder if it would be have been more fulfilling to be a reader pre-net, actually going to bookstores and talking to people for recommendations.

As for social media I was an early adopter and then ditcher of Facebook. It is a false god which enables vanity and spreads discontent, and lies. Smartphones are potentially more insidious, a totalitarian's data-mining and gps-tracking wet dream, ever pervasive, always demanding. And they look so cumbersome. So I have a 2009 Samsung. Caveat - little social life to speak of.

what the hell are you all doing on this shithole grandpas

36

reading a history of the crusades.

Also almost done with a first draft of my third novel. Didn't write any today, because I was busy vomiting.

runciman?

Exactly what you're doing, sport --- escaping from our lives.

I'm 28 and am in university.

Suck it nerd.

no fucking clue what that means

I'm 22.

Mexico
24
"Las Mémoires" by Giacomo Casanova

For me it's something like TVtropes, or even wikipedia: I can drop hours in what seems like minutes, just like I used to with books.
I *did* used to read the encyclopedia and dictionary for fun as a kid... I guess it's kind of similar...

Another thing that I have noticed is that somehow the ease of access is addicting... Books require more patience, I think, at least the kind of books that I like: slow buildups and descriptive language, etc. It's like there's some horrid little demon whispering "tldr" inside me sometimes...

I don't see tech as bad, or myself as not responsible, for the record. I just like to really examine my relationship to the world and act consciously.

US, 25, Recognitions

I'm still early on but I find that if I resist the urge to obsessively reread, so as to soak up every detail, that it flows very well. Gaddis had great rhythm but it's hard to keep pace and not just wallow in the craftsmanship of each sentence.

That book is phenomenal. I read it twice in a year.

>William James on religious experience

I like you user

I'm only 25 but I mostly date girls in their early teens and twenties. Their phone usage is shocking. Even just the few years between us have caused this enormous rift. They're snapchatting and instagramming and tweeting and I barely even use facebook. They text me all the time too. It's infuriating. The ready availability of nudes is nice though. They send those out like it's nothing.

U.S., 37, just finished collected short stories of John Cheever and started "On blue's waters".

34, U.S., Brideshead Revisited

I can't believe I'm 34. The years since 30 have flown by faster than anyone younger than 30 can imagine. I need to get my career in order, get married, . . . fuck.

If it's any motivation, I know a 45 year old guy who told me that he felt the way you're feeling when he was 35 too, and then he didn't do it, and another ten years went by.

...

I'm going to be 30 in less than two months. I know I shouldn't let it get to me, but I do. I'll see the Veeky Forums threads about what various great writers have accomplished before 30, and I feel inadequate. I've actually gotten some short stories published, but nothing big, and I don't have a novel out. I've failed at getting an agent and I fear dying in obscurity.

17 isn't 'early teens'

31, America.

Currently reading Independent People by Halldor Laxness and Conquest of the Useless by Werner Herzog. Both are excellent.

I went to Iceland this year and Independent People makes me long to return. Comfiest place on the whole planet, although I almost regret typing that because I don't want it to be ruined by tourists like me flocking there because it's the hot new meme.

Herzog's diary amazes me at every page. I can't image myself leading a film crew at age 28. Some days it seems like I can barely put air in my tires.

Meanwhile I've been making steady progress on my own novel. If I can keep at 1k a day for the next two weeks I'll have a solid first draft done by Christmas.

I know the feeling. Sounds like you and I are in the same boat. What else can we do but keep writing though, right?

Stop thinking about age as a "line" where you have to have certain accomplishments by certain points. You're abstracting too much, and it's leading you astray.

Think of your passions and your life goals as something concretely in front of you, in a present that keeps developing into the future. There's no fucking line. There's "I want to understand quantum physics, so I'm going to do the things 'in front of me' that lead me to that transformation, and in DOING those things I will also be experiencing them." Reorient your perspective of what "a life" looks like, take a step back from the intuitive mental imagery that comes up when someone says "what you've accomplished" and realise that you're intuiting it in a stereotyped way every time, in a way that necessarily has certain imperatives and priorities bound up in it.

If you keep thinking like you're thinking, you're just going to repress it, and when you hit 40, 50, 60, and beyond, have a panic attack that you're old. You're never "old." You're just you.

Do you think Kant cared that he was a nobody until his 50s? How can your linear conception of the life you want to live even begin to accommodate things like Nietzsche, who (to his own knowledge) died in obscurity? Or a thousand other similar cases. The only rational escape from this kind of thinking and its pitfalls is to focus on doing good in the constantly unfolding Present, as whatever You Are. Create the beauty you feel compelled to create, for its own sake, whether you're 30 or 70 or 90. That moment of contribution to humanity and to eternity, and the journey it took to get you there, however many years, is worth all the careerist fucking paint-by-numbers "good lives" in the world.

Only The Buried Giant which I enjoyed. I'll try Remains of the Day soon.

31 currently reading:
A guide to critical theory rec'd by an user
Roadside Attraction
The Wretched Of The Earth
The New Jim Crow

US, 34, the Aeneid

>I need to get my career in order, get married

This is where I am, but because I spent most of my teens and all of my 20's in a depression and have spent the last few years beginning to unfuck my life.

Going back to school with nineteen year old girls is excruciatingly frustrating in a lot of ways.

Yeah, that will probably happen to me too. At least if I don't relapse first and drink myself into an early grave. . . . I'm a lifelong determinist, and lately I've taken a lot of comfort in that world view.

I was on a date a few days ago, and she brought up some stuff about what she'd tell her younger self if she could go back in time, and that got me going on a ramble of all my regrets, which then provoked in me a countervailing effort at consolation in the form of a lecture on determinism. I don't think there will be a second date.

I can imagine that would be tough. I did the same thing, pissed away my best years with depression, anxiety, and alcoholism, and now I'm trying to get where a well-adjusted 22 year old should be. It sucks.

Because it's christmas therefore dickens time?

The older you get, the faster time goes by, particularly once you cross the age 30 mark.

Bank on this.

Are you the guy who said the more he reads austen the more he's convinced she was a better writer than Joyce? That was a good post that requires expansion

US 29
Valis Philip K Dick

I'm 25 but I'm in school so I guess I don't qualify. Reading Don Quixote.

US, 27, My Struggle Book One

I'm loving it so far. It's very cynical and self deprecating so if that's your thing I would check it out.

NL, 28, rereading Oblomov. I've read it about six years ago and now that's it cosy wintertime it seems like a good time to revisit.

That dream chapter is probably most comfy thing I have ever read.

HST was way better before he became a living meme desu.

26, us, villa triste by Modiano

Not his best so far but I'll read anything Modiano

And desu idk why to worry about the nagging feeling of not being accomplished.

I've been looking for a cosy wintertime book and you're the third user to mention Oblomov in the space of a few days. What's stopping me to try it is that I hear it's a tragedy and I'm just not in the mood for that. I know I'm being a shallow pussy (therefore I fail even as a pussy) but is there any good, "serious", ""literary"" book that's comfy and snug end to end and doesn't kick you in the feels just as you were letting your guard down? I have a feeling this precludes any Russian authors.

Oh, and I'm 36, live in a second-and-a-half-world European country and am currently reading the Bible. I don't plan to read it cover to cover though, I've selected about half of the books (not sure if it's half in terms of number of pages). Currently almost done with the Psalms which, though repetitive, like much of the rest, can get pretty comfy.

Steven Runciman wrote a classic history of the crusades.

Dubs of Certitude, checked. Well said user.

>be me
>Texasfag
>34 years, army vet, no college

Reading: Us & Them by David Berreby, an examination of the tribal nature of man. Non-fiction by a layman in the field. Seeing how it goes.

Also reading Livy, because his version of early Roman history is basically an action movie and the themes and archetypes of the eternal city are still powerful today.

Knut Hamsun's Hunger was great. Growth of the Soil I could not finish. Dostoyevsky's Idiot was p cozy. I've not read Oblomov but that sounds like it could go on the list.

My fellow 30-something anons. I believe in you. Go get what you want. (For myself, I know I don't want to be married til about 50. Got close once. Need to publish a novel first.)

Romania, 26, currently Vanity Fair by Thackeray, it's great. Taking a break from Plato, 900 pages in, just before the Republic.

Liking both of them, but I have very interesting books on the backlog so I'm anxious to get to them. Also anxious to secure a PhD, cause I'm slowly breaking down, feeling like wasting life not doing what I'm supposed to.

I'm 34 and from Northern Ireland. Currently reading The Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai.

I haven't been on /lit in a year or so, am back to see if any good book recommendations are floating around. Think I'll check out Canonball by Joseph McElroy.

As for real books vs ebooks, I prefer real books but ebooks are v handy. I never fall asleep as fast as my wife so usually read on my phone for half an hour each night. Handy not having to turn the light on. Thats the only time i get a chance to read, really

>NO TEENAGERS OR CURRENT UNIVERSITY STUDENTS ALLOWED
This is a stab in my heart. I am 26 and still study. I'm such a loser.
But soon! SOON! Soon my time will come... surely.

What are you studying?

25 here.

I've been thinking of resigning from my job and spending a couple of months at home to really focus on finishing a novel I've been working on. I have to face the fact that I'm not going to be able to write anything worthwhile working nine hours a day at a job that uses up my mental energy. Parents are encouraging me but they live in a small town and I'm afraid that I'll end up like Ignatius or that I'll regret it when the time comes to find a new job and I can only find call centrerwork or something.

Any advice?

Been working full-time since I graduated three years ago.

What are you working? Would it be tough finding another job in the same field? If you left, would you leave under good graces with the management? So that you could get your job back if you so wanted?

It's pretty admirable to follow your passion either way, I am actually struggling to do the same.

MA or PhD?

It's data work at a start-up tech company in NY. On paper I can make it seem like an intense job (I joined when the business just started out and it's pretty big now). But really the work is just monotonous and often cause me to really hate myself for wasting so much time during a period of life when a lot of people really focus their time and attention on achieving something they want to achieve or climbing a ladder they want to climb. But I come from a blue collar family and I have no real marketable skills, which means after a couple of months at home I will either have to do shit-tier temp or minimum wage work, apply to return to college, or move back to the city and find another probably less well-paying job here.

Whatever you end up doing, I think finishing that novel is really important, especially if you really feel you need to do it and it's what you should do. Living on a little less I think is more acceptable (I imagine you'd agree with this) than living a life that not fulfilling or where you feel that you are missing your calling.

Estonia 28
The Twelve Chairs Ilf and Petrov it is pretty funny and light read, would recommend . .

I know that feel, now i mostly read on my lunch breaks and when Im out somewhere. .

Last couple of weeks I started reading at home again also. Key is making yourself comfy and realising this is so much better than looking random crap on internet. . also dont waste time reading the book you dont like

Thanks for the reply. I agree about fulfillment, it's just I know that if I had a father or if I talked to my boss or some practical-minded guy about this he'd suggest either writing in my free time or working until I have money for a house / apartment and so on. My mom is encouraging me to resign and move back home for January at least (she and he partner are both retired and travelling to Europe for a month). But I guess I'm psychologically damaged to an extent in the sense that my default perspective is that I'm destined to not succeed, or that I somehow belong at the bottom of the barrel. It's certainly not healthy. So many people I've met in the past few year have met me and wondered aloud why I wasn't someplace else doing something or pursuing something I'd enjoy. But the truth is I have this persistent fear that for me there is a long way to fall. My mom unemployed for a long time and only ended up finding jobs she hated, and after I myself was NEET after graduating for a couple of months the idea of willingly returning to that state seems absurd to me at times. But then again I feel like I'm in a Catch-22 wherein I'll hate myself if I stay and hate myself if I leave and end up being rejected from everything I apply for despite those jobs paying less and so on. I mean I realize it takes confident, even arrogance and narcissism to assert what you want in life and simply pursue it despite the impracticality of doing so, but I also acknowledge that plenty of people have similar aspirations as mine and that they perhaps pursue their ambitions in a more logical, mature and responsible way, rather than retreating to mommy's spare room and demanding success (relatively) immediately while others either socialize their way into being somebody worth publishing or work hard for years outside of their full-time job in order to write a novel etc. I've done a lot of research and found that most authors I respect (playwrights, novelists etc) did not work full-time while writing their debut work or any subsequent works. Some did, but most either NEETed it for a while, worked part-time or wrote while attending an MFA course. And those who did work full-time often did so in a capacity which allowed their literary talents to flourish (i.e. academia, literary editor etc). It's a tough decision and one I've hesitated making for so long that I literally have until the end of today, or tomorrow at the latest to make (if I'm to have a month to myself in January while my folks are away). Thinking practically there is little to no money in literature, and it very well take me much longer than half a year or so to complete something I'm proud of, and then to wait for a reply from various agents and publishers. Those facts encourage me to simply keep working full-time and write while looking for a job with perhaps fewer hours in this city.

I'm 24 and I am the opposite of well read.

See you in a year when I've read two more books and I can shit up this thread.

Not the guy you're replying to, but it's at least clear to you that you're doing this thing.

I am the most starry-eyed idealist ever, but you do need to think of the practicalities like you said. There is very little room for material success in literature anymore unless you fall into the major categories of what sells, like vampire YA schlock, minority confessionals, cook books, or war memoirs. If you're outside that small group, you basically want to either be a gimmicky pomo New York art scene nepotist with friends in high places, or literally don't quit your dayjob.

I don't understand why you can't do like you say, look for a better job that isn't eating up your entire life, and work on the book in your free time. I know a guy who works a low-key nine-to-five and he's researching and writing his own books at a decent pace on the side. Of course, you'd have to surrender career mobility, and take similar risks. But why does it have to be all or nothing?

Camille Paglia finished her magnum opus in like 1968 and it wasn't published until 1990 while she hounded publishers. I don't know what the fuck her dayjob was in that time, but you have to be prepared for bullshit. Doesn't mean you have to work 10 hour days and die inside either though.

But my ambition, and my instincts (which may just be my childish subconscious REEEing) tell me that I am simply wasting what potential I have by sitting for nine hours a day at a desk watching time go by slowly as I stare at excel sheets and watch my co-workers read clickbait articles all day. My mom recently told me that I should be more of a risk taker, and that I'm young enough to start over if I need to. I agree to an extent but I've also seen the downside of being a risk-taker and it is often the case, probably most often, that those who succeed in a given industry do so after spending years practically pursuing some goal related to it in a logical fashion, wherein they gained contacts, established a name for themselves, while also earning a wage that did not only benefit them by allowing them to make rent. But with art being an essentially private occupation, subjectively evaluated, produced and sold in a marketplace populated by other works of art which demand a great deal from the consumer (especially with books) often without supplying much in return, then there is only so much you can do outside of actually writing a book. But then in order to write a book you simply need to have the time, energy and focus to make it the primary (or secondary only to children if you have them) concern in your life, because otherwise it'll never be more than some hobby you do on the side, and the lack of dedication will inevitably be betrayed by the work itself, because it will only ever be invested with the dregs of your talent. Maybe it would be healthy for me to simply take a risk for the sake of it, in other words to prove that I have not been rendered completely meek and tame and servile by my first full-time job out of college, which I took because I was desperate. There will always be people who insist that I don't earn enough money or work in an interesting enough job to be considered a mature individual worthy of respect and fellow-feeling, but am I really giving in to these people by continuing to labor miserably and if I am would it make more sense to simply quit and prove my resolve or to suffer as long as it takes to be hired elsewhere?

We should have more oldfag threads.

They're pretty comfy.

best post to be honest

Shit, I meant late teens.

Camille Paglia earned a PhD related to the subject of her book then taught classes at Bennington College related to her book.

It's what I mean really. I believe I am condemning myself to the status of rare outlier if I ever do make it. While Camille and others have practically worked towards their goal. It would be unlikely that she would have researchedand written that book of hers if she had spent the time working instead as an accountant.

Examples:

1. Phillip Meyer (American Rust, The Son)
>graduated aged 25
>worked as a trader until 28
>lived with parents from 28 to around 31
>started studying to become an EMT
>attended MFA and made it

2. Faulkner
>worked in the office of postal office from 25 to 27
>resigned and lived as a NEET in New Orleans and Paris
>published Soldiers Pay at 28 / 29

3. Douglas Adams
>graduated and worked with Monty Python in London
>ran out of work
>moved home to live with mommy aged 24
>stayed there six months and wrote Hitchhiker's Guide...

4. Kerouac
>graduated and worked as a reporter
>quit and bummed around the US working numerous brief jobs
>moved home with mommy at 25 and wrote Town and The City
>accepted at 26 and published at 28 / 29

5. Knausgaard
>graduated at 21
>worked occasionally at at a psychiatric hospital, newspaper and on an oil rig
>avoided military duty and bummed around Bergen
>returned to college for art history at around 25 / 26
>NEET for years
>published debut at 30

6. John Kennedy Toole
>graduated with PhD at 24
>taught essentially part-time as a military conscript in Puerto Rico
>worked 10 hours a week in New Orleans from age 25 while writing Confederacy...

7. Mishima
>graduated at 21
>worked for the Economic Ministry in Japan
>made up a story about almost falling asleep on the train track
>told his parents he couldn't work and write
>father allowed him to quit
>published at 24

8. Tennessee Williams
>graduated at 21
>worked at his father's factory until 24
>quit after becoming exhausted and depressed
>attended writing school at 25
>worked jobs across the US (chicken farmer, cinema attendant, hospital worker)
>published earliest play by 27, recognized by around 31 years old

9. John Steinbeck
>moved to New York at around 21 to become a writer
>fails
>moves to California with wife at around 23
>works odd jobs around Lake Tahoe
>ran out of money
>wife and father persuaded him to keep writing
>lived as a NEET at age 26 /27 in his father's spare home in Monterrey
>first published aged 27

10. Kafka
>graduated around 21
>worked at two different office jobs while trying to write
>become so disheartened by full-time work that he negotiated a reduced working day
>worked from 8am to 1pm
>first published aged 28 / 29

I could go on and on due to the amount of research I've done and that amount of information I've memorized, if only to gain a helpful and reassuring insight into how other writers (and other artists) made it an what lifestyle was necessary in order for them to do so.

It's too late, the FBI are already tracking you.

Fuck you guys, I was successfully pretending to be 20 when I was 15, I should be allowed to pretend I'm 25 now that I'm 20.

Studied Philosophy, then started CS with Engineering with very slow, slow progress, since I hated it. I study Law now. I spent 8 years at university and have no higher degree than a BA, BSc. Feels awful. Couldn't get a job either.

That's a funny book, I like you user

Ok, I am the guy who initially started asking questions, I'm back.

From what I read you have a lot of things mixed up into this, it's not only a thing about pursuing a passion, but various identity problems and self-esteem/image troubles. I kind of agree with you when you are saying that you should quit, just so you can prove yourself that you are able to break your lifestyle and prove something to yourself, that in itself I think is very valuable and helpful.

Because from what you are saying, you aren't really getting much value from what you are doing either way (except getting better payed?). So quitting at this point is kind of low risk from that perspective. Having supportive parents is always a great plus in these situations too.

On the other hand, you are leaping into something that is very risky, tackling a very difficult domain (literature) in its most complex form (novel). So yes, you are right that you need to pursue a lifestyle adequate for your interests in order to succeed in them, but I would also argue, that you also need to give yourself room to grow...maybe start smaller? start trying to get short stories published? articles? that sort of thing? I would assume something like that would also provide some sort of validation and feel like a breath of fresh air, in a life of monotonous meaninglessness.

hm, maybe attach light to book?

Hello and thank you for your reply.

In terms of starting small, I have already written a novel (when I was 21) which was accepted for publication but I withdrew it when they finally replied to me (three months after the usual reply period) because in that time I had started something else and was really embarrassed by the novel they had accepted. I have also been shortlisted for two of the three short story competitions I've applied for (applying for another one in January). So I have at least some basis for being confident in my ability, but again I read about people like Phillip Meyer and how he thought he was hot shit at 28 and quit his job to finish off and then submit a novel, only to have that and another rejected before he finally was published at 34.

I suppose my fundamental fault is that I see no place for myself in life, and that I judge others to be in possession of something I simply lack, namely the capacity and sustained desire to assert their internal will on the external world and the essential drives necessary to believe that they are as good as others, if not superior in their literary talent, and to have this confidence and assertiveness reflected in their written work. Objectively speaking, thinking the way I am is simply pointless and only encourages apathy and resignation. But I am so unfamiliar with any different ways of thinking that I may well end up embarrassing myself and others having entirely overestimated my ability to thrive in an arena (success, realized ambition) in which others have gladly spent their entire lives. For example, I wrote a second novel which I sent to the publisher who accepted my first one, and then declined. I then sent it elsewhere for it to be rejected. I then contacted a relatively small press who have grown rapidly in recent years and have some great names on their books, and because they were opening a new office in my region the person in charge asked me to send them my work. But I was so unprepared for acceptance at that point I ended up sending not only my work (which I agree was too boring and perhaps too short to be published, and which I'd written after working nine hour days and commuting an hour to get home) I also sent a document of "additional notes" which was around 7,000 words long and was written in a style that was so familiar that in retrospect it makes me cringe physically and feel glad that I at least submitted it that time under a pseudonym. Someone threw me a bone and I overreacted and acted like a rabid dog until they were chased away.

Faulkner is a good example, as just because he got published, nobody knew who he was until he was in his 40s, and he didn't start making any real money until he was in his 50s.

I'm 38 and this thread is a bit sad, my fellow dinosaurs. Lots of whining and failure. Stop caring so much and post comfy Christmas reads for such semi-senile seniors as us.

I honestly wouldn't mind earning very little and allowing my mental illnesss(es) to claim whatever portion of my consciousness they seem to desire as long as I had a published book under my belt which I could pick up and hold and send to my mother each and every Christmas. Being a mute weirdo with nothing to show for it is hellish.

Also, Faulkner earned enough money with only his first novel to buy the large colonial home which has since become indelibly associated with his legacy.

Plenty of shitty periodicals (and also good periodicals) accept flash fiction you know. Takes no time to write either, easy to expand on.

Never fall into the trap of sitting around and waiting for motivation to come to you. People always say shit like, "Well...if i was getting paid to do it, I'd do it a lot more, and I'd be way better at it!" For one, this isn't true, for another, if you weren't motivated, you would never get to the point of being published and making money anyway.

Motivation is it's own motivation. It doesn't happen out of nowhere, you have to make it happen. You basically have to force yourself to do something, then when you start seeing results, it will motivate you more, and next thing you know it will become a way of life, and THEN long after this process has started, you'll start seeing real results like getting published, making money, banging dumb 18 year olds with ddd cups, etc...

You can't focus on the goal though, you need to just focus on the shit you can do now to one n day make that goal happen.

Well....that's a whole nother story, he actually didn't buy the house outright, and he had a huge mortgage, and he spend the next decades trying to keep up with the payments and supporting his booze habit, and it wasn't until he won the nobel prize that he actually got the cheddar to pay everything off.

Still here.

I think what you are describing in a good thing, because it stems from a perfectionist attitude, a high standard to which you aspire. You shouldn't abandon or fight against this, since without it you are certainly locked out of producing anything of true quality. But I think this can also be crippling because of the large gap you see between your current condition and what you aspire to be...can be discouraging and numbing. So yeah, I guess it must feel a bit like crawling, when you have to push yourself through rationalizing what you have to do alone, and are not able to rely on some initial drive (though I'm sure this drive manifests in time, as you get closer to where you want to get). But it's important that you do so, even if it's in small steps.

Full disclosure, I might be projecting here, currently dealing with what I've described, so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt.

>this can also be crippling because of the large gap you see between your current condition and what you aspire to be.

I agree, and to be honest I feel like I've wasted this past year already since if I had simply pushed out trash there would at least be the chance I may have been published at which point whatever benefits would be praised and whatever faults in my work could be dismissed as evidence of my youth. But as I get older I feel this intense pressure to write a perfect book that is mature and sort of accomplished without a run-up of sorts comprised of lesser books which at least established my identity as a kinderblumen or whatever the Germanic phrase happens to be.

What is your situation, by the way?

Well, for one, you should never focus on the end goal completely, as for one if you do things right, more than likely your end goal will change.

Kind of like how all boys want to be firemen, then we they get that age, most figure out, "Oh wait....that's a real shitty overworked, dangerous job." If you do things right, the childish ideas in your head now will probably change.

Other than that, it is small steps. I've known tons of people who, figuratively, will stand on this empty piece of land, looking at it all day and yell, "WHY ISN'T MY HOUSE BUILT YET! This is just empty land, This is bullshit!"

Well....did you dig a hole? Did you build a foundation? That'd be a good place to start.

27, US, reading The Secret History of Lord Musashi and Arrowroot by Tanizaki. Trying to finish reading Tanizaki's oeuvre in English.

I'm still in university part-time for graduate studies, but I also have a full time job, am married, own a house and will have a kid next year.

Everybody wants nice things, very few are willing to do the work it takes to get them.

Building a house is actually a really hard, dirty, shitty job that we make the misfits and recovering addicts in our society do for a reason.

Most people's reaction to this is something like, "Well...can't I just skip all the hard stuff, and go right to having a nice house?" and this is exactly why they don't have a nice house. Plus, the rare few who win the lottery and do get the nice shit, always know deep down that they didn't earn it, and become miserable pricks.

Brb making thread for 30+ year olds since we are obviously so much more mature than you

not OP but

>do you really see old people reading literature more than young people?
By a very large margin.

>Do you never talk to someone older than you and think "Christ what an idiot"?
Yes, but only with people who don't read.

As you get older, you start to notice just how retarded you were when you were younger, and just how dumb everyone around you was too.

There's that whole, "Invincibility of youth," thing that kind of has to wear off before anybody becomes interesting. They tend to have that, I'm right about everything, even though I know deep down I barely understand what I"m talking about most of the time, and I can do everything, even though I don't do much of anything but I still could do anything if i wanted to, sort of bullshit that has to wear off before someone becomes, "mature," and in fact, interesting.

I only got one last year, but it seems to have only had a positive effect for me. I have an airtight bag thing that you can put your phone in and use in the tub, so I take longer baths now, during which I read mostly the whole time.

Would any of you date with a girl that is in her late teens like 17-18? I'm talking with a girl but I feel way too old for her.

100%

The age is less important than her being attractive though, like that's just pointless.

25, US, Infinite Meme. Almost done with it finally, took a lot longer than it should have but I had a difficult time getting into it for a while/was working on my most recent novel. Taking a few month break from writing while I edit and letting some stuff brew.

How is the Winter going for all of my fellow Northern Hemisphere seasonal depression fags?

>>do you really see old people reading literature more than young people?
>By a very large margin.

based on what?

>Yes, but only with people who don't read.
Again, how do you know this?

Your first point was exactly what I was saying. OP is here deciding that 25 is obviously the age of maturity. (maybe he is around that age?)

The second one is very presumptuous and not at all universal. Being a certain age is not required for someone to be interesting.

It's not really a "maybe". OP said he's 28.

Hell no. Maybe i'd fuck one, if she wasn't too annoying, but no way in hell I'd date a girl that young.

There's just nothing we'd have in common. if you did have something in common with them, then you got some serious issues.

It was a rhetorical question.