The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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For most people, the question "What would fulfill me?" is simple; only the "how" is the challenge. Most men just want a woman, while a smaller contingent want wealth, fame, power, community, faith, or some mix of these. For virtually everyone, the template is already there for what to do, and life is simply a matter of meeting the standard. You like engineering, so you become an engineer, etc.
Currently I'm in my mid-20s, and I've stagnated heavily because none of the paths feel right. There is no person, past or present, who inspires me to follow in his footsteps and to do the same actions. Instead it's like I'm pulled far away toward some distant star, to something particular no one has done before. And no matter how confusing or inconvenient this is, it's the only way I can find fulfillment.
Oddly, this seems common with people interested in the Classics (they're also always misanthropes). Not just guys like Montaigne or Nietzsche, but even the blogger TLP who produced shockingly original work at the height of his powers. Their styles are so unique that we can't imagine their work emerged from anything other than a deeply felt, internally consistent drive. They're also all writers. At 6 years old, I decided I'd become a writer, but this dream died years later when I found all existing styles unsatisfying. Now I think I'm coming around to it. When drunk, I pace around in circles rapidly and then sit at my PC and type up a storm. Overall I'm a mediocre writer, but in rare moods everything flows out beautifully. Perhaps I'll find that star soon. I sure hope so.
Then why not just... write? Where's your blog, your Substack? What are you putting in front of people? All the guys you mentioned did not ruminate and just did stuffs. That's the hardest step one can take, but by far the most important one.
I haven't been writing because I think our current literary forms aren't doing the job, and I've been daydreaming a lot about how to fix that. That probably sounds like a waste of time, but I do think I'm getting close(r) to some answer.
Can I ask what your thoughts are? I'm in the same boat. I feel like:
To the general public, written entertainment is obsolete. Your average person doesn't enjoy reading -- only a great book like Blood Meridian with no adaptation will convince him to read. Dune is basically a better version of Star Wars yet nobody knew that for 50+ years because people just don't want to read.
Books are competing on the same battleground for attention as films, as podcasts, as music, and they're losing. Basically, the only way to approach book writing in 20XX is to write a book so explosive and interesting that it lures you into reading it. This is stuff like Gravity's Rainbow, or Blood Meridian or Infinite Jest. Alternatively, it's totally batshit stuff like Philip K. Dick's work. These books are still read because they offer you experiences other media can't give you.
Does literature have a future? Well, to the extent it can compete. There is absolutely potential for more books like House of Leaves to attract the attention of normal people, to move literature forward in some way. But obviously, it's going to take a lot of talent. You have to be a master writer now to compete with other media. Unfortunately that's just how it is. But it's possible, yeah.
It sort of sounds like you're saying that, yes, novels have a future, but only if you're a master writer who can produce a work of transcendental genius. Which... sure. But unfortunately most of us aren't that. And most normal people aren't reading novels, either. I want to write something that a regular man-on-the-street can enjoy and talk about with his friends.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That regular guy on the street doesn't read, neither do his friends. You can write a good book but the odds anyone reads it are low. But of course, the odds of success in any creative medium are bad, so do what you enjoy.
Sci-fi and fantasy are very much alive, so if you have any interest in those books, you should try writing one. It's a niche, but a very steady one.
Can you give some examples of recent sci-fi and fantasy that you like? I used to love it as a teenager, but I've fallen out of it since then. It seems like it both ran out of ideas (no more Einsteins or Tolkiens to generate new material) and also got woke.
I don't read SF myself but Three-Body Problem is pretty recent and massive, you should check it out.
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