No One Cares If You’re Killing Yourself In The World Of Literature

By COLBY LATOCHA (via Thought Catalog)

I am 21-years-old. If I live to be 80 years old, that means my life is more than a quarter way over. My entire life I have been wanting to pursue my vocation, or what I believed to be so. Being a writer. I just do not believe that there is a point. An industry that was built on the talent of the genius’ before us, currently disregards it in favour of the novelization of writing that will only be viewed as cancer for generations to come. If literature is an art, why do we treat it with such disregard? The New York Times Bestseller list is littered with inane autobiographical self-help books by actors and comedians who are clinging to the last bit of relevance they can muster as they spew pointless social criticism coupled with their insightful advice from their social pedestals surrounded by their accumulated fortunes yesterday conceived, and poorly written fan fiction, that ostensibly is even plagiarized. At least E.L James has the audacity to describe in her own words, albeit poorly, as Ana’s cunt is ravaged by the ever so mysterious Christian Grey. Cassandra Clare on the other hand is pretty darn good at copying JK. Rowling. Hunter S. Thompson used to write out The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald to perfect his writing style, I just don’t think he ever had the audacity to send it to a publisher and collect a paycheck. This far into this waste of time, you might realize that I’m just another idiot critic using the internet as a soapbox to spew my misery in every direction. I’ve drank all the beer that I had left, and have a decent buzz right now, so I suppose that’s fair. Please bear with me however, because it’s also fair to say that you’re reading the truth. The world of literature has become a joke. Writers have their eyes on possible movie deals, not their prose.

With that being said, being someone who was forced out of high school three years ago, with no post-secondary education, whom also made less than $10,000 last year, I would gladly sell my book to a studio so that they could void it of all meaning and collect ticket sales as fans of the novel pay to go see it only to complain to their friends that the book was better. I would just have the decency to make sure the book was actually worthwhile. I just want to pay my bills through the path of least resistance. I’m not a monster. But Colby, you’re thinking, Why are you writing this? Well, as of today, the only thing that I will have ever had published was my grandmother’s obituary that I wrote yesterday night. It will appear in the local newspaper a few days from now, and will eventually line the gutters and local bird cages of my hometown. … I’ve spent a considerable amount of time pursuing music in my life (which was my first love, and is something that I will continue to do, but that is another demon, and perhaps a story for a different day), and have devoted none of it to writing, something that I’ve known I’ve wanted to pursue from the moment that my mother first read me to sleep. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that if I were to submit anything to a literary agent or a publishing company, they would ignore it in favour of shit. The reason why the only thing I will ever have had published is an obituary is because the industry has become diluted. Authors are cutting corners and their bodies of work aren’t an indication of their literary skill or value, but by audiences’ insatiable lust for the front page fuck that has landed the lead role in the upcoming movie adaptation.

I’m not saying that there are no good authors that are currently producing work. I’m only saying that they are not acknowledged by the literary community in the way that they should be. We’re only ever acknowledging terrible garbage, or those who are long dead. I get it. Kerouac did a bunch of drugs, and he wrote down whatever nonsense he could remember. He’s a genius. My point is that, if I want to be true to what my Grandmother told me in respect to being a successful writer, I have to sacrifice whatever artistic merits I am striving for in order to be considered what I want to be considered at the level that I wish to obtain. If I want to be a household name in the world of literature, I have to ensure that everything except my work speaks for my name. No one cares if I’m killing myself trying to enter the literary ring, they only care if Edward stays with Bella after he cums on her face. I’m here to box, but my competition didn’t show up for the fight. No one even showed up to watch. Gertrude Stein was wrong. Hemingway and his band of misfits were not the Lost Generation. The voiceless words that will never escape the pages of today’s literary hopefuls are. If you’re not writing a terrible young adult series with the potential at a movie franchise, just fuck off. I’ve often thought that there wasn’t a point to trying to construe a literary persona. I suppose that I still have time, but who can say for sure. Perhaps I will just accumulate all of my work, and instead of blowing out 21 candles on Saturday, I will blow a hole in my head. Then as my mind is imbued on the walls that surround me and the publishing companies throw stacks of money at my estate to buy the publishing rights to my work, you can wish me a Happy Birthday and tell all of your friends with such heartbreak and sadness, how much you loved me as you colour me a genius, without ever knowing who I truly was. I would like that.

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The Roundabout Burden Of Being An Adult

By CORINDA LUBIN-KATZ (via Thought Catalog)

In the three years after my graduation from college, sometimes it feels like all I’ve learned is that adulthood is overrated and bills are a terrible price to pay for independence. I’m on an indefinite journey to “figuring out” my life, and while the struggle for some sort of enlightenment in this regard stretches on, my patience with the process thins. It’s frustrating on a multitude of levels.The whole murky experience seems to speak directly to my own shortcomings, my own inability to harness some combination of dedication, wherewithal, commitment, tenacity, excitement – any of these will do, really – to just get my life together already. I had all the resources, support, love, and guidance I could ask for. And yet, here I am, just floating along. I’m stuck in some nebulous state of a journey whose path seems to be made of molasses, and every slow step forward is like a highlighting of my inadequacies. All made that much worse by how much everyone continues to believe in me. Meanwhile, I become increasingly certain that the inevitability of disappointment lurks somewhere ahead – I don’t know exactly where. How long do I have to float indeterminately before it’s been long enough to reveal to everyone that I might just be sort of average? Then comes the descent into self-deprecating wallowing, which, while satisfying in some quirky sense because it alludes to the fact that maybe I’m dysfunctional enough to join the cast of Girls, is not helpful in any way when it comes to jump-starting progress.On occasion, I feel like I’ve tapped into some hive of potential – a doorway I didn’t notice before – and things will improve. The pep in my step returns; I feel like I’m on my way, mojo in tow. And therein lies the godforsaken element to this whole 20-something saga that might be more frustrating than the low points of the roller coaster: the roller coaster effect in and of itself. Because the ups are followed by downs and vice versa, everything seems fickle. We make progress, we seem subconsciously linked with a perpetual inspiration, and then, before we know it, we find ourselves once again uninspired. The fleetingness of the momentary inspiration makes us doubt its existence, or that it will return, or that it ever even mattered at all.It’s not that much easier when you live in a city like New York, a place where things are supposed to happen – the freaking heart and soul of creativity, entrepreneurialism, and the teeth-gritting determination to succeed – it pulses through the city and verges on tangibility. But sometimes, you can’t seem to match its momentum. It’s like a track racing by you, and you know you could race to unforeseen new accomplishments and revelations if you only had the cojones and conviction to risk embarrassment and bruises to jump on the track yourself. Instead it whizzes by and with each blur, you find yourself less certain of what you’re doing or where you’re going.I have less than a year until I can no longer get away with saying I’m in my “early 20s” — by all definitions an adult — and yet I live paycheck to paycheck, grocery shop once every four months, and play hot potato with my savings and checking accounts. The only consistent staples in my fridge are a Brita that blinks red, club soda that’s lost its fizz, and a dollop of hummus for which there are probably no more chips. My roommate and I have been decorating our apartment for going on three years and still haven’t finished. I’m in a constant state of indecision for the most irrelevant things — vastly centered around choices involving food — which only ever adds to the limbo effect for this stage of life. The timeline I imagined in my youth is now laughable in any lens you look through: well-established career, financial stability, marriage, kids. The former two feel like a thought I had but can no longer remember — giving the inkling of possibility while eluding my grasp. The latter two I cannot even fathom being ready for now. So by all definitions that actually matter, I’m not an adult.

And sometimes I look at the people who were unorthodox, who dropped out of college, who still made a legacy. And whatever it takes to do that, I admire deeply. Not specifically to drop out of college, necessarily, but in believing so deliberately in what you must achieve, and in dedicating yourself to the route that will bring you to it. There’s something really incredible in summoning the confidence and unwavering resolve required to make any desire come to fruition. In desiring something so much that to not scratch, claw, and climb toward it would be the antithesis of instinct. In dreaming big and not becoming instantly overwhelmed by the elusiveness of even the smallest first step. There’s obviously the talent component as well, but it’s something deeper than that, something less obvious and more gritty, more meaningful that is most amazing.I would never have dared to drop out of college. Not that I wanted to, not that I feel I should have. I’m very grateful for my college experience. But the point is, I’ve walked an obvious path for so long and now that path has turned into a vast, unforged territory of possibility and promise or potential mediocrity. There’s no pre-determined next step. You have to figure out what you want to do with your life, and sometimes it will scare the living hell out of you because in more moments than you’d like to admit, chances are good that you’re not sure you have a clue what that is.Uncertainty does not change the fact that I’ve been lucky enough to have access to a great many resources and endless support. I’m not blinded by my periodic discontent into thinking that I have it rough, that my fumbling my way through my twenties is anything more than a discomfort. If anything is a confirmation of that, it’s the fact that it’s difficult to speak about it without feeling whiny. But, nonetheless, it’s real. I know from conversations with friends and siblings and acquaintances in a similar age bracket that it is surely a shared struggle. For me, I just want to feel inspired daily by what I’m doing. To know – consistently – that my time and energy are being put into something that makes my time meaningful and my energy refueled. This realization will not need explanation, I imagine. It will just be.Sometimes it makes me wonder how self-involved I can be that I dare to consider the aftermath of my privilege any type of burden. Ultimately, though, I reconcile myself to be (at least temporarily) content with recognizing my context, and how my existence unfolds within it. With the path paved for endless possibilities it seems that it’s clarity of purpose I most lack. And it’s definitely that which I most seek. But there’s something special about a journey — however indiscernible the path may be; it offers something that clarity and composure and a destination do not. So until the day I wake up with a deliberate path to follow, an unequivocal dream to chase, an inspiration to embrace and know with unshakeable conviction, I will thank the most thankless moments of this journey for what they must be giving me; for all that I cannot yet appreciate, but surely one day will. I will learn to love the opportunity for growth and discovery born only of uncertainty.