/lit/ - Literature

Post here if you wasted your life. How do you handle having wasted your life, what coping strategies have you developed, and what is the emotional and social impact wasting your life has had?

For me, I got a mech eng degree, couldn’t find any job, gave up looking and now work in a factory making 11 dollars an hour. I’m thinking I’ll end it all one of these days.

>this thread

I’ve witnessed, incognito, the gradual collapse of my life, the slow foundering of all that I wanted to be. I can say, with a truth that needs no flowers to show it’s dead, that there’s nothing I’ve wanted – and nothing in which I’ve placed, even for a moment, the dream of only that moment – that hasn’t disintegrated below my windows like a clod of dirt that resembled stone until it fell from a flowerpot on a high balcony. It would even seem that Fate has always tried to make me love or want things just so that it could show me, on the very next day, that I didn’t have and could never have them.

But as an ironic spectator of myself, I’ve never lost interest in seeing what life brings. And since I now know beforehand that every vague hope will end in disillusion, I have the special delight of already enjoying the disillusion with the hope, like the bitter with the sweet that makes the sweet sweeter by way of contrast. I’m a sullen strategist who, having never won a battle, has learned to derive pleasure from mapping out the details of his inevitable retreat on the eve of each new engagement.

My destiny, which has pursued me like a malevolent creature, is to be able to desire only what I know I’ll never get. If I see the nubile figure of a girl in the street and imagine for the slightest moment, however nonchalantly, what it would be like if she were mine, it’s a dead certainty that ten steps past my dream she’ll meet the man who’s obviously her husband or lover. A romantic would make a tragedy out of this; a stranger to the situation would see it as a comedy; I, however, mix the two things, since I’m romantic in myself and a stranger to myself, and I turn the page to yet another irony.

Some say that without hope life is impossible, others that with hope it’s empty. For me, since I’ve stopped hoping or not hoping, life is simply an external picture that includes me and that I look at, like a show without a plot, made only to please the eyes – an incoherent dance, a rustling of leaves in the wind, clouds in which the sunlight changes colour, ancient streets that wind every which way around the city.

I am, in large measure, the selfsame prose I write. I unroll myself in sentences and paragraphs, I punctuate myself. In my arranging and rearranging of images I’m like a child using newspaper to dress up as a king, and in the way I create rhythm with a series of words I’m like a lunatic adorning my hair with dried flowers that are still alive in my dreams. And above all I’m calm, like a rag doll that has become conscious of itself and occasionally shakes its head to make the tiny bell on top of its pointed cap produce a sound, the jingling life of a dead man, a feeble notice to Fate.

I’ve witnessed, incognito, the gradual collapse of my life, the slow foundering of all that I wanted to be. I can say, with a truth that needs no flowers to show it’s dead, that there’s nothing I’ve wanted – and nothing in which I’ve placed, even for a moment, the dream of only that moment – that hasn’t disintegrated below my windows like a clod of dirt that resembled stone until it fell from a flowerpot on a high balcony. It would even seem that Fate has always tried to make me love or want things just so that it could show me, on the very next day, that I didn’t have and could never have them.

But as an ironic spectator of myself, I’ve never lost interest in seeing what life brings. And since I now know beforehand that every vague hope will end in disillusion, I have the special delight of already enjoying the disillusion with the hope, like the bitter with the sweet that makes the sweet sweeter by way of contrast. I’m a sullen strategist who, having never won a battle, has learned to derive pleasure from mapping out the details of his inevitable retreat on the eve of each new engagement.

My destiny, which has pursued me like a malevolent creature, is to be able to desire only what I know I’ll never get. If I see the nubile figure of a girl in the street and imagine for the slightest moment, however nonchalantly, what it would be like if she were mine, it’s a dead certainty that ten steps past my dream she’ll meet the man who’s obviously her husband or lover. A romantic would make a tragedy out of this; a stranger to the situation would see it as a comedy; I, however, mix the two things, since I’m romantic in myself and a stranger to myself, and I turn the page to yet another irony.

Some say that without hope life is impossible, others that with hope it’s empty. For me, since I’ve stopped hoping or not hoping, life is simply an external picture that includes me and that I look at, like a show without a plot, made only to please the eyes – an incoherent dance, a rustling of leaves in the wind, clouds in which the sunlight changes colour, ancient streets that wind every which way around the city.

I am, in large measure, the selfsame prose I write. I unroll myself in sentences and paragraphs, I punctuate myself. In my arranging and rearranging of images I’m like a child using newspaper to dress up as a king, and in the way I create rhythm with a series of words I’m like a lunatic adorning my hair with dried flowers that are still alive in my dreams. And above all I’m calm, like a rag doll that has become conscious of itself and occasionally shakes its head to make the tiny bell on top of its pointed cap (a component part of the same head) produce a sound, the jingling life of a dead man, a feeble notice to Fate.

>>13367368
Everyone's attention span is shot to shit by Youtube and Instagram and living in a big city. Everyone's biggest fear is boredom because we can't bear to look at ourselves and the choices we've made.

all the struggle and all the war in history and eveything our ancestor's went through has all lead up to this piece of shit age of boredom and disillusion. today the biggest worry is whether or not you are being left behind from your peers, trying to lose your virginity, trying to find a partner for marriage, trying to find some boring office job etc and then we die. instead of dying in war or by some disease we will all die from boredom. all our myths and values have been deconstructed and we are left to live in this disenchanting age.

literally what went wrong? also book for this feel?

>>11995150
I write about being sad in New York

>be me
>be ugly beta 27 year old nofriends loser autist with no friends or social experiences since school, no attention from women ever, never been to a pub, club, or party, even through university
>walked past a university today and saw literally tens of qts and Staceys in their primes
>felt incredibly demoralised because I'm an eternal loser with no motivation in life and they'll always see me as an ugly loser
>went through university as a loner loser
>lifting did nothing, having a full time job did nothing
>normies are all enjoying themselves and I've missed out on everything

After seeing some pop music videos and Instagram posts today I became even more demoralised. Everyone but me is loving the good life. I have no motivation to do anything in my free time. I just waste it on the internet. I have no passions in life.

I'm such an ugly boring charismaless loser. I become the ugly loner nobody talks to within one day of all my jobs. My level of introversion and lack of normieness makes all professional effort worthless because you need to be a normie networker to get anywhere.

Even junk food barely keeps the pall of ennui and boredom away anymore.

posting a long one

Many people have defined man, and in general they’ve defined him in contrast with animals. That’s why definitions of man often take the form, ‘Man is a such-and-such animal’, or ‘Man is an animal that…’, and then we’re told what. ‘Man is a sick animal,’ said Rousseau, and that’s partly true. ‘Man is a rational animal,’ says the Church, and that’s partly true. ‘Man is a tool-using animal,’ says Carlyle, and that’s partly true. But these definitions, and others like them, are always somewhat off the mark. And the reason is quite simple: it’s not easy to distinguish man from animals, for there’s no reliable criterion for making the distinction. Human lives run their course with the same inherent unconsciousness as animal lives. The same fundamental laws that rule animal instincts likewise rule human intelligence, which appears to be no more than an instinct in the formative stage, as unconscious as any instinct, and less perfect since still not fully formed. ‘All that exists comes from unreason,’ says The Greek Anthology. And everything, indeed, comes from unreason. Since it deals only with dead numbers and empty formulas, mathematics can be perfectly logical, but the rest of science is no more than child’s play at dusk, an attempt to catch birds’ shadows and to stop the shadows of windblown grass. The funny thing is that, while it’s difficult to formulate a definition that truly distinguishes man from animals, it’s easy to differentiate between the superior man and the common man. I’ve never forgotten that phrase from Haeckel,* the biologist, whom I read in the childhood of my intelligence, that period when we’re attracted to popular science and writings that attack religion. The phrase is more or less the following: The distance between the superior man (a Kant or a Goethe, I believe he says) and the common man is much greater than the distance between the common man and the ape. I’ve never forgotten the phrase, because it’s true. Between me, whose rank is low among thinking men, and a farmer from Loures,* there is undoubtedly a greater distance than between the farmer and, I won’t say a monkey, but a cat or dog. None of us,from the cat on up to me, is really in charge of the life imposed on us or of the destiny we’ve been given; we are all equally derived from no one knows what; we’re shadows of gestures performed by someone else, embodied effects, consequences that feel. But between me and the farmer there’s a difference of quality, due to the presence in me of abstract thought and disinterested emotion; whereas between him and the cat, intellectually and psychologically, there is only a difference of degree.

I lifted heavy weights (relative to now) at the gym yesterday and I may be stronger than I've been for over a year. I had a late night McDonalds binge afterwards.

I had skittles and cherry cola and chocolate today. I considered having honey flavour Ben and Jerry's but I think I can overcome it and stop binging, for now. I am having coffee from Starboocks right now but I won't have it after 4 pm, so my sleep won't be affected too much.

I wrote a large 6000+ character sadpost last night.

I am unsure whether to start reading a history book or a sci-fi book. The sci-fi book seems less interesting. It's really quite damning that novels feel like more work than history books. I can see why someone would say otherwise, by saying fiction works your imagination, but I don't take that seriously.

I saw an otherwise 7/10 with large boobs and it really hit home the idea of genetics being everything.

I am starting to see everything as an intelligence test: avoiding junk food, avoiding coffee, and so on. But in the end, is it more intelligent to have junk food and maximise pleasure or sacrifice pleasure for the sake of some ideal that is merely a spook? It's arbitrary, of course.

I feel like such a subhuman for not having a highly technical job, not being rich, or not being a high paid lawyer or investment banker. Young people these days start financial companies for fun or become bitcoin millionaires after zero effort or work in fancy city of London offices in companies where everyone is under 35 and they have job titles with "strategy" in them and they go on 10 holidays a year and rent their large London flats on Airbnb and feel sincerely sad about Brexit or work as academics (it's all charlatanism outside of STEM, but still) or work in the UK public sector surrounded by their clones and Oxbridge college friends and with a pressure free job for life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zk0eyKzp1c

After watching this video I have realised that I would have been an ugly outcast loser in 1967 as well.

Last night I had some time in the evening and chose to binge on KFC and then chewy skittles and Ben and Jerry's instead of go to the gym. Having that limited amount of time made the choice feel like some sort of RPG choice.

I am currently having a small binge. Regular coca cola, regular chocolate, regular sweets. It's a very sincere, unironic binge, and the food reflects this.

I finished reading a short non fiction book. I feel like I have more pseud cred but I don't have a good memory so it's not like I have lots of new knowledge.

I keep walking around the same places in London. Zone 1 is really not so big. I unironically dislike the most touristy areas. I am not rich or homeowning in london or have a high status job so I am basically a roach.

I read a news story about how Brett Kavanaugh would meet prospective law clerks (current law students) at a Yale Law Professor's parties and he would encourage them to apply to him and he would recommend them to a supreme court friend as well. I'm not saying this is perverted, but it kind of sums up life. You're either in the good institutions, being judged on your normieness by other normies, or you're not.

>>11553825
Hey reading it right now! My Grandmother recommenced it to me. I gave her "Confessions" by Augustine to read first. Plan on giving her "Fear and Trembling" next.
>tfw you have a based /lit/ Roman Catholic Vavo