Why are writers (especially young, unpublished ones) the most egotistical people on the planet? Doesn't egotism go against the whole spirit of writing?
>>25591453All art is egotistical. It's by default. If you didn't buy into your own self importance a little bit then you wouldn't be putting your thoughts out into the world. Don't confuse it for egocentrism.
>>25591453>the whole spirit of writinglol
>>25591455fpbp
>>25591455/thread>>25591453but to add on, you have to be egotistical to think your time is better spent creating new work than reading existing work, and you have to be delusional to dedicate significant portions of your time to writing or literature in [CURRENT YEAR]
>>25591453>>25591476>>25591455Kafka wanted all his works burnedPessoa left all his writings in a trunk and diedOutsider writers are so insane they don't even realize there's a world to write to, or fame to achieveThis kind of writing is the only pure writing, as it's creation for the sake of creation, not for any other reasonEven Arthur Inman, the diarist who wanted his 17-million word diary published, realized that, after the atomic bomb was created, nothing would last forever and that dreams of legacy were vain. From that point on he wrote solely to "ward off boredom"
>>25591497they lied they are human
>>25591497>Even Arthur Inman, the diarist who wanted his 17-million word diary publishednever heard of this guy until this moment, thanks for telling me about him>kafkakafka was a perfectionist who died correcting proofs for a short story he knew was going to be published, and left his manuscripts in the care of his best friend, who spent their entire relationship badgering kafka to publish his work, kafka knew what handing them to max brod would mean>pessoapessoa always intended to publish, his manuscripts contain elaborate plans for publication, he just never got around to it because a) perfectionist and b) died before he could actually do it
>>25591497>Even Arthur Inman, the diarist who wanted his 17-million word diary published, realized that, after the atomic bomb was created, nothing would last foreverDid he not know the Earth would be incinerated by the sun by then? That was known by the 1940s
>>25591497>Reviewing the two-volume edition, Time described Inman as a "megalomaniacal bigot misogynist Peeping Tom hypochondriac," who "hated Jews, Italians and Roosevelt while admiring Hitler."This nigga was the first 4channer
No it's the exact opposite. If you are to write you have to be beyond egomaniacal. You have to want to make your navel the centre of the universe. You have to believe so deeply in yourself and what you write that you are ready to die for it. There's already so many books, it simply cannot be any other way.
>>25591510>Did he not know the Earth would be incinerated by the sun by then? there's no proof of that, libtard scientism cultist. the sun is made out of plasma.
>>25591497All of them were possessed by that free egotistic energy where they were buying into their own way of thinking and how they saw the world in that moment of writing, which is exactly why they wrote fiction. Read Kafka's correspondonces and tell me you don't see a man who really thought that his writings had some sort of innate value. If they wanted to be impersonal they would have written nondescript columns about regional news under a pseudonym. And just because they wrestle with that desire doesn't mean that it's not there in the first place. It's like a terminal illness that just sticks with you, and dealing with it is a lifelong task. And that inner self reflective struggle is what characterizes the special authors we all celebrate as a society, or at least used to celebrate. Rimbaud quit writing but became an arms dealer in Africa instead because that's the kind of high you chase once you've gotten addicted to your own farts. Stop chasing this pearl clutching dream about "pure" writing in abstract clouds and ground it in actionable terms that have concrete meaning to you and your life.Now this isn't giving everybody a free ticket ride to be self obsessed dickwads, because as stated above there are many nuances and shades to this. I agree with you that fiction writers are generally insufferable people, my hack ass included, but some are more reprehensible than others. You shouldn't respect the guy who immediately presents as himself a Writer with a capital letter on social media for example, or the guy who genuinely posts quotes of his own self as examples of wisdom. But as with all things in life, it's all about balance, and with writing existing in a very controlled environment where you're the only one in charge and what steals people's attention away from other things in life is fundamentally and exclusively of your own doing, you have to counter balance it with the shit you have no control over i.e. what is generally filed under life experience. That's how writing starts from a basis of self and soars into that which can go way beyond your meager little punk ass. I can read Joseph Conrad and know that his writings contain both shades of the light of his soul and shades of the light of the world.
>>25591453>>25591534(cont.) If you're going to be this much of a purist when it comes to writing as an artform then you you better go all the way and be world weary in all aspects of life in general, much like the religious order of old, and I am in no way trying to dismiss them and claim that they were wrong about it or whatever. That was back when people were extremely self critical when it came to anything that pertained to indulgence, and their belief in an illusory world testing one's moral character weighed against an everlasting peaceful afterlife was the kind of necessary philosophical framework that would stop themselves from spinning in circles about it. What we now take for granted as a hobby, let alone a profession, was genuinely and perhaps rightfully seen as madness. This celebration of one's ability to tell tales -which is a euphemism for lying- is a huge contrast to a social order where if you weren't being straight up with your intentions and at best writing about religious and civil matters, you might as well have been an idiot. Maybe that's how you see the world. I personally wish I could do that, but right now i'm just a sick fuck who drank the self expression kool aid for my entire life.
>>25591534Thank you, anon, for the effortpost. I will reconsider my ways of thinking for a while. But in the meantime, do you think entirely impersonal creation is possible? I'm now starting to think it is not. Perhaps something like creation without a creator, but that sounds like AI-generated "writing" to me. Maybe nature is the ultimate creative force, but living things, even plants, live in deadly murderous competition. Is there no thing that exists simply to exist? Perhaps rocks or stars. I'm sorry for my schizophrenic disorganized thinking and poor reading comprehension. But why must one tree desire to grow taller than the others, even though their quest for sunlight overshadows and starves the smaller trees? Salt crystals would do no such thing. Can writings grow as mineral deposits do?I will take my meds now.
>>25591497>Kafka wanted all his works burnedBorges once made the observation that by asking Brod to do the burning, Kafka ultimately didn't really want his work burned. As Borges says, if Kafka REALLY wanted all his work burned he'd have burned it himself. By handing it to someone else to do the job, Kafka must have known in the back of his mind that it wouldn't get done--and that, therefore, there must have been the hope still there, however faint, that his genius as a writer would be recognized some day.
>>25591453To be fair, have you seen the average American? There's a statistic that half the country cannot read beyond a middle school level, and most are overweight or obese. These are the people that actually watch television, the National Football League and Marvel movies, the people who earnestly think the Democratic or Republican parties "care" about America.
>>25591557>do you think entirely impersonal creation is possible?No, since you're the one assembling those words according to your predispostions and your decisions, but why would have it to be otherwise? Even the filmmakers and photographers who try to simply capture nature's minutiae put a personal stamp on things by making a decision of when to roll and where to cut.I don't think you're looking for something kooky like Automatic Writing or wanting to get lost in mazes of whether or not art is blasphemous since human beings are trying to play God or what have you. Seems to me like you just want to get away from positioning the self at the center of your art, and you can do that just fine. You can write about the joyful nature of those cats you've posted throughout the thread and it would be on the opposite end of the autofiction trend of glorified diary entries that you might despise. Plenty of grand and tiny things in life worth paying attention to, and that attention is how you direct your own consciousness. That's ultimately all on you and how you see yourself in the grander scheme of things, but you inherently have to believe in something's importance in some fashion for you to choose to do it.That's how we as humans exist. None of us chose to be made in this fashion. This state is as much a part of life as Aurora Borealis. And in my book, a belief in God as the highest creative force does not nullify a human being's proclivity to create and arrange things. It's how you approach said nature that seals the difference between people, and that is related to what you value as truthful or rightful or beautiful...etc. If you really did think that taking human agency out of the equation was the purest thing to do then you wouldn't have started this conversation in the first place.
>>25591617>autofiction trend of glorified diary entries that you might despiseI actually really enjoyed Megan Boyle's LIVEBLOG>>25591598>There's a statistic that half the country cannot read beyond a middle school levelI don't think I can do that. My reading comprehension is so poor that I feel retarded most times. It's taking me a lot of effort to understand what >>25591617 >>25591543 >>25591534 all means in its entirety, which is a shame because it seems rational and well-written and perspective-altering; that is, if only I could understand it fully I feel I'd have a new lens with which to look at art and life through. But it feels nebulous in my mind. Philosophical stuff is difficult for me to grasp. My IQ is too low. I only feel and cannot think. Such is the curse of being a stupid amerikkkan pigdog . . . >>25591617>Automatic WritingI actually like some of the Oulipo and Dada stuff. >>25591617>If you really did think that taking human agency out of the equation was the purest thing to do then you wouldn't have started this conversation in the first place.Is this applicable to uhmmm uhhh why antinatalists should commit suicide? I think I should be an antinatalist. I think literature should verge on schizophrenic incomprehensibility. That way it is pure expression without communication, and therefore comes with none of the ego-felating potential of uhhhmm uhh normal writing. Finnegans Wake is how humans should communicate on a daily basis.Something about the tower of babel. No human should have a reading comprehension level beyond that of a bonobo.
Let's see you be God and not turn arrogant.
>>25591754not that funny
>>25593208but enough about you
>>25591453If you cannot imagine anyone more egotistical on the entire planet than some snot nosed wannabe writer, then you have a severe intellectual disability. And while contemporary medical science tells us you cannot beat stupid out of a mongoloid, I sure think someone ought to try in your case.
>>25591497I write stories to contemplate ideas I don't understand or lack the language to communicate.Are you saying I should be publishing?
>>25591453>spirit of writingGo read Hume.
>>25593594Are you that jeet who shills his horror "books" on here?>>25593654Now this is funny
>>25593711Yes!!!!!
