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/lit/ - Literature

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7106667 No.7106667 [Reply] [Original]

Will I ever be a good writer if I can't maintain strong emotions for very long? Like, I could watch a documentary about genocide and be completely horrified for a few hours, and then be giggling at epic /lit/ memes having forgotten all about that. Just today I went to a museum and felt really affected by what I saw and decided to write something for the emotions I was feeling, but by the time I got home I couldn't have cared more about what I had just seen. Am I autistic?

>> No.7106675
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7106675

>tfw you realize you're shallow and uninteresting
>tfw all pressure to be creative is off your shoulders
>tfw you just play video games all day now

>> No.7106678

Postmodern life is very fragmented[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIwwWGpRz_A

>> No.7106685

>>7106667
That's called being human lad. I'm no expert but it seems to me that we're built with a tendency to disassociate ourselves from suffering not directly related to us. Which is a positive thing really, otherwise we'd have all killed ourselves long ago.

Really and truly to be a 'good writer' or, at least, a poignant one, you need to be able to dip your quill in the inkwell of your own experiences, not others.

>> No.7106689
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7106689

>>7106685
The problem is, I can't even really be joyful for more than an hour or so either.

>> No.7106704

>>7106689
Perhaps your life is mundane. Would you describe it as conventionally joyless? Or is the problem with you? I assume you suffer from depression. Live at home? Study? Work? Good/bad social life? Sex life? Financially secure? Poor? First world? Second? Third?

>> No.7106737

>>7106704
I go to uni but that's basically it, no gf either

>> No.7106740

>>7106678
u r so pastiche friendo

>> No.7106849

BREAKING NEWS: directionless college student undergoes existential crisis in the 21st century! More at 11:00!

>> No.7106864

>>7106667
If you don't care about it by the time you get home, I would say you didn't really care about it very much in the first place, no? Anyone can be made to "go through the motions". I can be made to feel sad about an issue I don't give a second thought to at home if the message is conveyed well enough.

Just because you can't tap into this continuous well of empathy and sorrow after you've watched a single documentary doesn't mean you are autistic. Chill out mang.

>> No.7106876

>>7106667
Only if you decide it is. It is one the major themes in The Stranger and minor in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Stephen (Joyce) experience a similar disaffectedness and even similar concerns to yours about it in his youth (this changes later though).

You don't have to give a shit about the things you are supposed to give a shit about to be a good writer. In fact, I would say having a more unique set of principles and values gives you something to write about.

That being said if you don't give a shit about anything all, then yeah you're pretty much destined to be mediocre.