Does having a trauma-free, steady upper middle class life with a spouse and children preclude one from the creation of great literature?
>>7728924
>trauma free
there, that does it.
Yeah desu... last thing we need is more ignorant white dudes writing 'literature'...
But see, since you're unhappy because you don't have the trauma to write literature, you can use that as trauma.
Write a book about how fucking boring your life is.
>>7728924
Bullshit. Fuck all them cliches on tortured artist and shit.
Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work, Flaubert said.
>trauma free upper middle class life
There is no such thing m8. People who live that kind of life usually create trauma.
>>7728961
This. Shakespeare wasn't a tortured artist, at least from what we know. Made decent money, had a wife, fucked a boy in the ass on the side.
>>7728924
You can still tell someone else's story, if you're willing to do the research.
>>7728924
Gene Wolfe was a nerd with a desk job who wrote shit science fiction short stories that got rejected by magazines for years. We're all gonna make it.
>>7728971
except for the fact that he had to bury his only son?
So, what, cavemen wrote the best literature because they lived in the worst conditions?
Join the military. Get into the shit. Kill. See your friends killed. Come back and write about your PTSD and regrets.
Instant suffering cred even for cis white upper middle class males.
The war novel is the GOAT genre anyway.
>>7729046
That's not what "traumatic" means.
>>7729089
Please, enlighten me.
>>7729089
>Trauma
>Not bad
>Worst
>Not the absolute extreme of bad
>>7729160
A trauma is a violent and "bad" anomaly (since it's out of the general standards) in someone's life. Being fucked in the ass by a 70 year old male wasn't traumatic for ancient Greece teens, but it is for modern american teens. Being an slave wasn't traumatic back then, but it would be traumatic for everyone who posts in this vietnamese paintings forum.
>>7729236
*a slave
Kek
All of this talk of ''cis white males''...
You faggots need to fuck off back to Tumblr.
Anyone in the west is priviledged, you fucking cunts.
Also, you're not special because you've been through suffering. If anything, you're just unlucky... Unless you have a certain ''genius''.
If you have a shit life but don't have that ''genius'' then, you're just unlucky... All you will have is a shit life. You will not get salvation, ever. There will be nothing redeeming of your life at all.
The majority of people who suffer, do so in vain.
They do not get the last laugh.
''Most men leads lives of desperation and die with the song still in them''
to misquote Thoreau.
It took me a while to fully understand this but:
THOSE FUCKERS BORN INTO RICH FAMILIES WHO ARE HAPPY AND LEAD WONDERFUL EXCITING LIVES, IN GREAT EXCESS... WELL, THEY WIN. IN THE END, THOSE LUCKY FEW WHO GET TO DO ALL THAT THEY WANT IN THIS LIFE, THEY REALLY DO WIN.
And them being happy or rich, or content... Doesn't make them stupid. People think this alot, it doesn't make them any less of a human being because they're fortunate and have not suffered as greatly as you. You haven't suffered as greatly as some starving African child but does that mean they have more of a ''right'' than you, to write a book? Or speak of pain and suffering? No, it doesn't. Because they don't have paper to write on. They don't have food in their stomachs. They might even DIE next week. There is absolutely NO value in suffering unless you also have a genius mind. The cons far outweigh the pros.
It might come as a shock to you because those who have suffered profoundly cannot accept this. Even I wish it weren't true. Nietzsche and others entire works are dedicated to the idea that ''suffering'' is good... It isn't. Unless, you're genius too.
Think of all those writers, musicians, painters, whatever... That lived lives of pure agony and torture and died in poverty, only to have their works forgotten about or destroyed... Or never read/heard/looked at, at all.
>>7728961
This.
The idea of the tortured artist is something that stems from spotlighted interest on 'cool' biographical stories. Anyone can write, and write about anything. Plus, autobiographical works are on the decline.
>>7729064
Not going to work if you get killed yourself now is it?
All that matters is the time you spend reading and writing.
You've had rich and poor writers, great writers who have lived a life of turmoil and writers who were some of the most sheltered people imaginable. It doesn't matter. You need to get good at your craft, that's the only thing that precludes the creation of great literature.
The trauma thing is such a shitty meme here. A lot of the best writers have lived relatively trauma free lives. The reason this meme exists is for two reasons I can discern.
1) The assumption that if you're going to write a novel, it must be autobiographical to some degree. Therefore, some dude living his life without a big problem is shit. Of course, plenty of people are capable of inventing stories beyond the scope of their lives, so it shouldn't be a big problem.
2) A fetish for the tortured artist persona. So many plebs who never read more Hemingway than Hills Like White Elephants can tell you about how he was wounded in the war, his depression, alcoholism, and eventual suicide. In their shitty value system, that makes him a better writer.
>>7728924
Yes.
Point int case: Stefanie Meyers, R.L.James
Nothing truly good or memorable ever came out of the middle class.
>>7729285
>THOSE FUCKERS BORN INTO RICH FAMILIES WHO ARE HAPPY AND LEAD WONDERFUL EXCITING LIVES, IN GREAT EXCESS... WELL, THEY WIN. IN THE END, THOSE LUCKY FEW WHO GET TO DO ALL THAT THEY WANT IN THIS LIFE, THEY REALLY DO WIN.
C'mon dude, for you a good life is this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOHDkIxyu2A
>>7729358
Yeah, such a terrible life.
> tfw the only thing that makes you a minority is no longer a big enough deal to give you suffering cred
This is the true price of progress.
>>7729285
Suffering has nothing to do with being rich or poor
What makes you happy is how you react to objective circumstances. Rich people suffer too, their needs are just different but the experience is almost the same. Some spoiled rich kids in China kill themselves because their parents didnt give them fucking candy.
>>7729366
My supposed young friend, you've fallen into a meme.
https://archive.org/stream/dialoguebetweena00leoprich#page/n5/mode/2up
>>7729358
I've seen that video before.
HE WINS. IF HE'S HAPPY, HE WINS. IF HE ENJOYS DOING THAT STUFF, HE WINS.
It's that simple.
I know it's fucked up and you might say he's just ''shallow'' or ''materialistic'' but... He wins, mate. This is coming from someone who is extremely poor and probably has ''suffered'' compared to the majority. (Majority of the west, that is)
If you believe you've ''suffered'' and maybe you have, it doesn't matter. If you're not a genius, it was genuinely all for nothing. You lose. Some people are just lucky, man. They get all they want in this life.
As Thompson said:
''It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die.''
Think about how many people die via injustice everyday... They're not somehow rewarded or remembered for it... They literally just fucking die and are forgotten about. No one cares after X amount of time.
It pains me to say it but those people, the ''normies'' as it were, they win. The rich kids, the spoiled, the entitled, the happy, the shallow... They win.
That kid in the video might be just as talented as you, or anyone else. Just because he's happy and has a good life it doesn't make him any less ''authentic''...It doesn't make him stupid...
It's depressing, I know... but it is the truth. There is no reward for suffering. It is just that, suffering. But people, especially in the ''arts'' tend to think suffering is somehow a good thing. It fucking isn't. And they'll soon find out.
>>7729425
Yeah sure, I wasn't saying it was between rich or poor. It's just an easy example to use. Despite all the bullshit poor people spew to make themselves feel better...chances are, the richer you are, the happier you are...
>>7729432
>Condition X that I don't have to deal with doesn't cause suffering it's condition Y (which by pure coincidence is something that affects me) that does
Get out sjw
>>7729430
But... many people would say yes to the ''Would you be fine with living the same life again?'' question.
People who haven't suffered, would be fine. People who are happy would be fine.
Despite what you think, some people genuinely love their life.
>>7729443
What the fuck are you talking about, you faggot?
>Condition X that I don't have to deal with doesn't cause suffering it's condition Y
What?
Hang yourself or atleast make sense next time.
"great literature" is for boring plebs so living like one should to be the best way.
>>7728924
Great literature is created by people who sweat and bleed to produce it and who want it more than anything in the world. Accept that, and then see what else fits around it.
>>7729451
you live in a bubble of envy
>>7729754
Not at all.
I simply speak the truth. Prove anything I've said wrong and I'd be willing to change my opinion (which happens to be based on facts)
The majority of the poor (in the sense of suffering and wealth) remain unheard of. They have done forever. They have been disappeared by non other than mother nature. The times didn't move with them, nor did they move with the times... And so, they suffered for years. All for nothing.
Alexander The Great... What happened to the poor? Where are they now?
I don't hate the rich and I don't self pity anymore.
I am poor. I have suffered... I still know this to be true. It's the harsh reality of being an ''artist'', whether that means a painter, writer, musician or whatever. There is a chance that your art will never be appreciated. There is a chance your art is just shit. There is a chance that you will die in obscurity and that is all that will come of you. No legacy, ''endless nameless'', so to speak. The artists ultimate fear.
>inb4 hurr durr famous hurr special snowflake hurr
That's not what I'm getting at. What I'm saying is EVERYONE wants their life work to be appreciated. Even those who conjure up entire philosophies that hinge on will power and seperating yourself from the heard. An example: Do you think Nietzsche wanted no one to read his work? Why publish it then? Why not just keep it to himself and tell no one? He wanted something.
>>7729837
>That's not what I'm getting at. What I'm saying is EVERYONE wants their life work to be appreciated.
This isn't true. For instance, Kafka never published the works he's famous for and even asked his friend to destroy them. Your mistake, I think, is to believe that to "win" in life means to receive some sort of external recognition from others, which I don't believe is true.
>>7729014
This. He only got big after he retired from his engineering day job and had more time to write.
>>7729852
>For instance, Kafka never published the works he's famous for and even asked his friend to destroy them
But that doesn't mean anything. At the time of creating his works he quite evidently wanted someone to read them otherwise he wouldn't have shared them. He wouldn't have wrote books.
There are many things that can make a man want to simply vanish off the face of the earth, never to be heard of again...
It doesn't mean he always wanted it to be like that, though. There was obviously a point at which he intended his work to be read.
>Your mistake,
Still waiting for someone to show me that... what mistake?
>I think, is to believe that to "win" in life means to receive some sort of external recognition from others, which I don't believe is true.
I don't believe this at all. Infact, I was waiting for someone to say this because It's easy to assume that's what I mean't. Well, it wasn't. Re-read my posts.
To ''win'' at life, you simply have to be happy, in my opinion.
That was my point... Artists tend to think that ''suffering'' somehow makes them better than others. It doesn't. It means you're unfortunate and eventually, when you die (I'm assuming you're not religious) you will be reduced to nothing, your suffering will be reduced to nothing. Those who were ''happy'' win, because while alive... They were having a good ol' time where as you, your parents died, your pet fish died, your dog died, you starved, your friends died, you girlfriend left you, you lost your legs, you were born disabled, you went blind, etc, etc and then you also died. Hence the ''You lose''.
>>7728924
If you feel like your life is too easy, you could always take up drinking or some hard drug for no particular reason.
>>7729852
Also, about the other thing:
It's the risk any ''artist'' has to make.
Do you focus only on your art and let everything else grow mould and rot? Do you try to keep a balance? Do you focus solely on achieving ''happiness''? Whatever that means.
There is risk involved. If the artists intention is to share his ''art'' with the world, (which it is) otherwise he'd be a bedroom writer, or a bedroom musician... If that's the case then the chance of failure is worth it. It's worth the risk. If it pays off and your ''art'' reaches many people, then even though you might be dead... It was worth the risk.
On the other hand...If you spent your entire life living in ruin, you suffered profoundly, you refused to get a job because you want to focus on your art...your fucking legs fell off... you go blind... and then to top it all of you die, just like the guy in the earlier example, only this guys art never gets the appreciation... And it gets destroyed or lost, or simply no one cared about it... Then he quite clearly suffered in vain. He loses. Sure, you could say ''it's more about the journey than the destination'' as in, it's more about the actual process instead of the finished product... but that's probably bullshit.
Typing on mobile so cba editing or checking for error btw
>>7730008
>At the time of creating his works he quite evidently wanted someone to read them otherwise he wouldn't have shared them.
So you subscribe to the 'no take-backsies' style of morality when it comes to a man's dying wish, I see.
The idea isn't offensive to me, but it's somewhat uncomfortable.
>>7730045
But this is total crap. "He who is happy has lived a good life" is essentially your argument.
But that's completely idiotic, because you can't measure greatness, goodness, virtuousness, or much of anything by the yardstick of happiness. If I were to be some 300 pound fellow who was never so happy as when I ate Snickers bars, and I got to eat Snickers bars all my life until I died of a heart attack at 80, and I was undoubtedly happy, what then? What have I made? What have I contributed? Of what value was that life?
In addition, you're arguing that suffering is always, by its very nature, a negative experience. This is obviously not the case. You suffered, a little, to learn academic subjects that were difficult for you. You suffered when you tried to get a girlfriend, if you ever tried. You suffered, a little, to accomplish many of the things in your life. You're placing major value judgments on things that should not be judged just so you can support your own worldview.
>>7730032
And there is your novel, anon
>>7730089
>What then? What have I made? What have I contributed? Of what value was that life?
What value is any life? You think value is creating something that effects someone else? It isn't, because they mean nothing too. A good life is indeed a life filled with happiness and as little suffering as possible. This is obvious.
You said it yourself though, Snickers guy was was happy, he probably died happy... Therefore he wins.
>you're arguing that suffering is always, by its very nature, a negative experience.
Because it is unless you're a masochist. No one likes pain or harship, mate. They might like what comes after that...
>You suffered when you tried to get a girlfriend, if you ever tried.
>You suffered, a little, to accomplish many of the things in your life.
Isn't it, though? You're saying it's not when something good comes after it... I see. You just proved my point for me, then. What about when nothing good comes from it...
If you're so sure you're right, you can test this:
Dedicate your entire life to something, anything. And I mean fully dedicate yourself to it. Naturally, this will lead you to suffer for it... Like a lot of artists do... But keep on suffering for it. Do this and nothing else. You might starve. You might be a virgin forever. You might never have friends. You might be lonely until death for it...Keep suffering for it though. And then just before you die, burn it all. Before anyone else ever sees it. Destroy every trace of it. Make sure it is completely gone, like it never existed.
Would you not then feel like it was all for nothing? Wouldn't you feel like you'd lost something? Wouldn't you feel like all of that suffering was for in vain?
...Or as I said before, are you a ''It's more about the journey than the destination'' type of guy?
>You're placing major value judgments on things that should not be judged just so you can support your own worldview
And what worldview is that?
>>7730089
I don't think you've thought about utilitarianism very much. At least, not enough to disregard it as a philosophy.
>What have I made? What have I contributed? Of what value was that life?
You generated a lot of individual happiness. That's pretty nice. For most people it wouldn't outweigh the happiness from getting general respect in their social relationships, but I don't judge.
no because you can write a novel about someone who has a trauma free upper middle class life with a spouse and children who wants to write a novel
then he can't do it because his life is too boring and it can be a denunciation of that lifestyle
>>7729064
> war writing
> good
>>7730198
>What is Slaughterhouse-Five
>>7730198
>TTTC
>GR
>C-22
>MK
