/lit/ - Literature

Underfunding and continual slashing of arts and humanities programs in highschools, over-focus on STEM within society, business, and universities as a whole. The emergence of the Hollywood blockbuster. The internet accelerating mass media to hyperspeed, dissuading any actual focus or viewer participation/concentration. SJW reactionary identity politics that, instead of making people more aware and interested in black, asian, and latin culture, instead has just boiled down into anti-western; + /pol/'s own anti-idpol idpol, which basically consists of whatever popular alt-right youtuber at the moment tells them was good about life 100 years ago.

Read up on Mark Fisher, too, if you're interested in why culture hasn't seemed to evolved in any significant or revolutionary way over the past two decades.

Looking in the mirror this morning I realized that I had finally become old. I used to look at my body as if it were a bad haircut or a short and annoying cold. It'll be gone tomorrow. It'll change by next month. Subconsciously, I always expect to see how I was in my twenties: sleek and curled brown hair, a modest frame, an intelligent gaze, morning wood. But looking at myself in the mirror, I knew with certainty that nothing could be done to fix my sagging chest and that my stomach was only going to enlarge from here on out. My back problems are getting worse, food doesn't taste as good as it used to, and I have a pill bottle for every ailment I've experienced over the past twenty years in a small cabinet above the toilet that I hit my head on every time I try to sit down and shit. What a mess. Who is this man in the glass in front of me? When did I start wearing contacts? When was the last time I cleaned this mirror?

My birthday was celebrated by a call from my co-worker Garrett and a knee-jerk decision to go out and buy a new table that I didn't need. I have been living in the same apartment for nearly thirty years, having immediately gotten a local job after passing my Bar exam, and I realized that I haven't bought a substantial piece of furniture since I moved in with my grad roommates. I am fifty four years old as of ten days ago and my only plans for today are to return the table after I shave and take my morning aspirin.

Thinking about of this made part of me want to go outside and smoke a cigarette even though I had quit smoking nearly three decades ago at the request of my long ex-girlfriend. I had always heard it was hell, but I had quit without any noticeable problems and soon forgot I ever smoked at all.

>>9836461
You're pathetic bucko