[HN Gopher] It's not what the world needs right now
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       It's not what the world needs right now
        
       Author : cribbles
       Score  : 144 points
       Date   : 2024-04-07 07:56 UTC (15 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (thebaffler.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (thebaffler.com)
        
       | scotty79 wrote:
       | The world needs room temperature superconductors, yet here we
       | are.
        
         | antfarm wrote:
         | The world needs _less_. Of everything.
        
           | lukan wrote:
           | Less comments?
        
             | geerlingguy wrote:
             | Fewer.
        
               | gabesullice wrote:
               | Indeed.
        
             | antfarm wrote:
             | Fewer snarky comments like yours maybe.
             | 
             | I believe we won't solve humanty's pressing problems with
             | more of the same.
             | 
             | We need more love and understanding for sure.
        
               | lukan wrote:
               | Well, your comment literally said, "less of everything"
               | 
               | " more love and understanding"
               | 
               | Was not mentioned.
               | 
               | So I am not sure how your first comment could help, to
               | make the world a better place.
               | 
               | "we won't solve humanty's pressinge problems with more of
               | the same."
               | 
               | And generic statements like these maybe neither.
               | 
               | Because when people are hungry(many are), yes they need
               | more food. More of the same.
               | 
               | But your comment implies there are also maybe too many
               | people anyway?
               | 
               | So rather less food and then eventually less people? But
               | still more of love and understanding?
               | 
               | Or maybe it all just ain't that simple?
        
               | antfarm wrote:
               | _The world needs room temperature superconductors, yet
               | here we are._
               | 
               | May I ask how room temperature superconductors make the
               | world a better place or help fighting hunger?
               | 
               | And what do room temperature superconductors have to do
               | with art?
        
               | antfarm wrote:
               | Oh, and less food waste and global inequality definitely
               | cures hunger better than room temparature
               | superconductors.
        
               | lukan wrote:
               | Many many applications.
               | 
               | But cheap highspeed trains (floating on magnetic fields)
               | come to mind as a means of easy transporation around the
               | world.
        
               | antfarm wrote:
               | _But your comment implies there are also maybe too many
               | people anyway? So rather less food and then eventually
               | less people?_
               | 
               | Those are your ideas, I never even meant to imply them.
        
         | noobermin wrote:
         | What are you blaming him for? How is this one starving artist
         | holding the world back from room temperature superconductors?
        
       | Zetobal wrote:
       | Yikes.
        
       | jack_riminton wrote:
       | I don't think there's a direct correlation between commercial and
       | artistic value. But there has to come a point where people who
       | create this kind of stuff realise they're not Van Gogh. Top
       | points for edginess though, I guess
        
         | thorum wrote:
         | Someone probably said the same thing to Van Gogh during his
         | life.
        
           | adamtaylor_13 wrote:
           | Just because he beat the odds, doesn't mean their advice was
           | wrong.
        
             | dclowd9901 wrote:
             | Their advice wasn't wrong. He never enjoyed any of the
             | success or fame he has now. Not even a fraction of it.
             | 
             | The world was lucky to have Van Gogh, but Van Gogh was very
             | unlucky to have this world.
        
           | dentemple wrote:
           | Nearly everyone said the same thing to Van Gogh during his
           | life. He was only recognized for his artwork after his death.
        
             | animal_spirits wrote:
             | That's not quite true. Yes people cared less about his art
             | while he was alive, but that was because of his erratic
             | behavior. There was no doubt that the people surrounding
             | him found his art beautiful, especially In his later years
             | when he was staying at the clinics
        
           | IshKebab wrote:
           | Van Gogh wasn't Van Gogh. If by "Van Gogh" you mean "had the
           | rare combination of skill and luck to be a successful artist
           | within his lifetime".
        
           | underlipton wrote:
           | Someone told Van Gogh that he wasn't Van Gogh? No wonder he
           | went crazy, that's some hardcore gaslighting.
        
       | simmerup wrote:
       | An essay of 'you don't ask, you don't get'
        
       | CPLX wrote:
       | This is excellent, worth reading all the way through.
       | 
       | The fact that his character is completely insufferable is, of
       | course, the point.
        
       | codingdave wrote:
       | The question I have not yet seen in the comments here is whether
       | or not this post is real or fiction. Is it the journal of a
       | questionable character, or a deliberate attempt to push people's
       | buttons?
       | 
       | And honestly, that is why I like it. I really hope it cannot be
       | taken at face value - that would be disappointment.
        
         | karaterobot wrote:
         | I don't see anything about a movie called _Interlaken_ being
         | developed. On IMDB, I do see an Andrew Norman Wilson as the
         | director of the short films he mentions in the article.
         | 
         | Who knows about the individual details in it. I'm sure it's
         | sort of directionally true. It's believable at any rate.
        
         | rightbyte wrote:
         | It seems like some art student guy's journey leveling up from
         | food coupon couch surfing to movie director. Dunno if real or
         | not or what the point is. Feels like trolling to piss people
         | off?
        
           | api wrote:
           | It was posted. It got attention. Someone may remember his
           | name. Mission accomplished.
        
         | NoboruWataya wrote:
         | Kinda gives me Bukowski vibes, like if Hank Chinaski had gone
         | to art school.
        
           | tomcam wrote:
           | When I think Bukowski, I think a Pasadena residence
           | punctuated by visits to the Queen Mary
        
           | badpun wrote:
           | Chinaski was working for a living, this guy would rather
           | cheat and steal, as he thinks labor is beneath him (he
           | described a regular cleaner's job as "demeaning").
        
         | gary_0 wrote:
         | > Is it the journal of a questionable character, or a
         | deliberate attempt to push people's buttons?
         | 
         | Reminds me of some of Hunter S Thompson's writing (who always
         | insisted his sordid semi-autobiographical tales were drawn
         | directly from even more depraved true events).
        
         | rootusrootus wrote:
         | > whether or not this post is real or fiction
         | 
         | Well, he has one other post on the same site that is explicitly
         | marked fiction, where this one is not. That may be a clue.
        
           | codingdave wrote:
           | Maybe - this is clearly someone who enjoys blurring the line
           | between reality and fiction, so a their tagging of their own
           | work might be equally blurry.
        
         | roughly wrote:
         | > whether or not this post is real or fiction
         | 
         | I suspect both, and I'd suspect the author's the sort who
         | wouldn't stay in one category no matter the circumstances.
        
         | doctorpangloss wrote:
         | All the true stories you actually bother to read are a little
         | fictive.
         | 
         | That said, he said two specific relationships with real people
         | that I know, by name, and you know what? He's telling it like
         | it was in those cases.
         | 
         | The least real thing about this is that, reading carefully, the
         | only antagonists are the occasional grant committee members who
         | reject him. To me, in real life, fine artists are quite
         | opinionated and tend to beef with a lot of people; or have no
         | opinions, and are pigeonholed into doing the same exact thing
         | that once, long ago, got them an audience, over and over again.
         | Andrew does not belong to this latter group.
        
       | subjectsigma wrote:
       | > A gallerist who wants to work with me says she can't add a
       | white man to her roster.
       | 
       | Pretty fucking disgusting that someone would openly say that to
       | him.
        
         | SoftTalker wrote:
         | I know a man who manages a theatre and he is pretty honest
         | about how difficult it is to work in that market as a straight
         | white man these days.
        
         | always2slow wrote:
         | LOL - people have said shit like this to my face my whole life,
         | including some CS admissions guy at CMU but he had the nerve to
         | throw in a derogatory remark about ADD too. Just normal shit
         | that happened in the 90's I guess.
        
         | underlipton wrote:
         | As a black man, I'd appreciate the lawsuit-opener over my
         | reality, which is just people seeing my alma mater and name and
         | pretending I don't exist.
        
           | selimthegrim wrote:
           | Is it that they don't think you're qualified to have gotten
           | in there or it's an HBCU so they denigrate it?
        
       | crawfordcomeaux wrote:
       | Imagine writing something with such honesty & the people reading
       | don't stop to reflect on how this is just one facet of how the
       | systems they prop up push people into operating to survive. They
       | just judge the person, as though they live in a vacuum.
        
         | sandspar wrote:
         | He lives this way intentionally. He could get a job as a UX
         | designer at Staples.com whenever he wants.
        
           | pavlov wrote:
           | There's currently a surplus of designers with software
           | industry experience, resumes full of business objectives
           | achieved, and a finely honed ability to speak the soothing
           | jargon of absolution that managers really want from UX.
           | ("Yes, we can make users love this pop-up that you want to
           | add. It's just a matter of applying design.")
           | 
           | Why would a corporation deliberately hire a video artist and
           | music video director instead?
        
             | underlipton wrote:
             | TBF corporations don't know what's good for them. When XR
             | was all the rage, it was current (2D) UX designers getting
             | jobs, instead of the 3D artists, sculptors, game designers,
             | animators, and industrial designers who actually had the
             | skills to make compelling spatial interactions, smart
             | objects, and experiences (which there was not a surplus
             | of). Then, the hype collapsed, and they fired everyone who
             | couldn't program, thereby making the issue incalculably
             | worse.
        
         | swatcoder wrote:
         | Honesty is not what the author is going for here. This is genre
         | autofiction following a throughline of slumming, marginal
         | artists that carries back through punk, beat, flapper, and la
         | boheme writers.
         | 
         | It's entertainment, not true confession or activism, and it
         | delights in getting under the skin of squares who can't tell.
         | 
         | No need to push back on the people reactively criticizing the
         | character or writer -- that's the point.
        
           | mycologos wrote:
           | Deliberately making art that people think sucks seems like
           | kind of a low bar?
        
             | swatcoder wrote:
             | Yeah, unless you can get the cool kids to think you're cool
             | for doing it. _This_ kind of art is a social game, not an
             | technical craft.
        
             | hackable_sand wrote:
             | We're meant to judge the character in the story, but the
             | story might suck for some as well. I personally did a
             | double take and skimmed the unimportant bits because I
             | loathed the character.
             | 
             | Imo the story could have easily been a piece of poetry and
             | I would probably have enjoyed it more.
        
             | NoboruWataya wrote:
             | It don't think the aim was to write a piece that people
             | think sucks, it was to write about a person who people
             | think sucks. There is a difference, or at least there used
             | to be: I feel like increasingly people are unable to
             | separate the literary value of a piece from the moral value
             | of its protagonist. This piece reminds me of Charles
             | Bukowski's books about the "lowlife" Hank Chinaski. Another
             | more extreme example of a good book with a shitty
             | protagonist is _Lolita_ , which IMO couldn't be published
             | today or Nabokov would be shunned and ostracised as a
             | paedophile.
             | 
             | (None of this is to say you need to like the blog post, you
             | might hate it on its own merits, but I definitely think
             | there are a lot of people here who think it's a bad piece
             | because they disagree with the choices the protagonist
             | makes, which I think is a very limiting view.)
        
               | tomcam wrote:
               | > It don't think the aim was to write a piece that people
               | think sucks, it was to write about a person who people
               | think sucks.
               | 
               | You're right, and it's what edgy teenagers can do in
               | their sleep, aka middle school math class. I would much
               | prefer he created actual art (written or visual) I could
               | care about.
        
               | selimthegrim wrote:
               | Disgrace got published and it wasn't much better from
               | that standpoint
        
         | badpun wrote:
         | Did the system somehow forced this man to avoid working for a
         | living?
        
       | kouru225 wrote:
       | "I ask a model what they would get paid for a shoot and propose
       | $2,000 to Barney's. They reject my proposal and offer a $1,000
       | gift card."
       | 
       | Probably asked a woman model not a male model. Women get double
       | what men get for modeling.
        
         | adwi wrote:
         | Not necessarily. Depends on the woman, depends on the man, and
         | often on their reps.
         | 
         | More likely because it was an advertorial, both for the brand
         | and the "models".
         | 
         | Fun read.
        
       | sandspar wrote:
       | It's not a lifestyle I'd want to emulate. The author/character
       | does seem to have some kind of moral code, at least. From my
       | reading, it seems like he's OK with harming the "haves" but I
       | didn't notice him harming any "have nots". I'd guess he's Chaotic
       | Neutral alignment. From easydamus.com: "People who are neutral
       | with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing
       | the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to
       | protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by
       | personal relationships... Chaotic characters follow their
       | consciences, resent being told what to do, favor new ideas over
       | tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it."
        
         | underlipton wrote:
         | That's just... most people.
        
       | asdf6969 wrote:
       | If tech had people like this I might actually enjoy my job
        
         | alecco wrote:
         | Tech had people kinda like this in the 90s. Some of them
         | hackers. Couch surfing, partying, lan parties,
         | skating/hiking/whatever.
        
       | jessenaser wrote:
       | Is this what it feels like to have a life without a purpose? Or
       | is it a plot to a romcom movie about to be released?
       | 
       | Either way, interesting.
        
       | jyunwai wrote:
       | Most other comments so far have viewed this artist's lifestyle
       | negatively, as he wrote that he got by via abusing various
       | policies and tax fraud (via "[hallucinating] a DJ software skin"
       | to claim as a business expense). But he's an interesting person
       | for sticking to his craft for close to a decade now: he has
       | persisted in working hard to produce artwork and submit it for
       | exhibition.
       | 
       | However, to what extent is this lifestyle necessary as an artist?
       | A common piece of advice for many artists is to consider
       | developing a steady career independent of one's art, which lets
       | them afford their lifestyle as an artist (such as by writing,
       | creating artwork, or performing during the evenings and
       | weekends). But the effectiveness of this advice must vary for the
       | individual: it's also common for many people to drop their
       | artwork or stop taking it seriously in favour of their paying
       | career.
       | 
       | For this artist in particular, I wonder if a steady job would
       | have been a positive or negative to his art. In this case, the
       | income would have reduced his suffering especially as he's
       | dealing with medical debt. It could have even granted him
       | additional artistic freedom, as he writes about the pressures to
       | "defect" and his acceptance of more commercial work for money.
       | Yet at the same time, it's possible that part of the desperation
       | is behind his drive as an artist--though it's also risky to
       | romanticize this desperation.
        
         | cess11 wrote:
         | Why would that be risky?
        
           | atoav wrote:
           | As someone teaching at an art school/university I can assure
           | you that unhealthy drives for art often (but not nearly
           | always!) have hard psychological causes. That brings all kins
           | of hardships with itself, many of those artists live
           | unhealthy, often impoverished, rarely stable lives. And while
           | the romatic view of the impoverished artist is a popular one,
           | these people are rarely as free as they like they would be
           | and I have seen suicides happen.
           | 
           | Most artists I know would love to have stability, yet in
           | society there is rarely space and funding for the things they
           | are doing. I know people who had to move their ateliers 4
           | times in 10 years, just because the landlords use them to
           | make the rental/area more attractive to a better pating
           | clientel and then kick them out.
        
         | rebuilder wrote:
         | The common wisdom is , if you're going to be an artist, it
         | better be because you can be nothing else. It's that hard.
         | 
         | So, it's a rare person indeed who can be a serious artist and
         | support themselves financially some other way
        
           | filoleg wrote:
           | Our choices about what we do (as a
           | craft/career/industry/etc.) aren't solely dictated by things
           | like "because I can be nothing else." Mostly because I doubt
           | that most people (including myself) would even have the
           | ability to answer that question for themselves.
           | 
           | I have no idea how everyone ended up doing what they are
           | doing, but I know that mine wasnt dictated by that at all. At
           | 18, when I was about to graduate high school, I had
           | absolutely zero sense about who I can or cannot be. Over a
           | decade later, I have a slightly better grasp on it. But it
           | barely moved the needle, and I still have no idea who i can
           | or cannot be.
           | 
           | I picked CS (computer science) as my degree. I had almost no
           | experience with writing code (turbopascal 5 years prior for a
           | semester doesn't count), and i was behind most of my
           | classmates in that aspect (who tested out of the first two
           | intro courses, since they either had HS internships or AP CS
           | credits or just personal projects like published apps and
           | guthub repos).
           | 
           | Well actually, originally I picked EE (electrical
           | engineering), but then I switched during the second day of
           | the summer orientation for incoming freshmen to CS. Once we
           | got to registering for the first semester of classes on the
           | second day, I saw the choice of classes I had vs. what CS
           | students had. The descriptions just sounded more interesting
           | to me.
           | 
           | Did I base my choice at any given point based on who I
           | thought I could be? Not at all. I had zero knowledge that led
           | me to believe I would be a more capable CS graduate (as
           | opposed to EE). I also chose not to go for pre-med, despite
           | my parents' wishes, but it also had nothing to do with who I
           | thought I could or couldn't be. I am glad I didnt go that
           | route, because after developing an ongoing friendship with a
           | guy who eventually became a licensed dermatologist, I learned
           | a lot of things that led me to believe I couldn't be a doctor
           | (not without losing my sanity, at least).
           | 
           | I guess the point along this longwinded reply is, I don't buy
           | it even for a second that a significant number of artists
           | picked their field because they didnt think they could be
           | something else. Most of them are people just like you and me,
           | and I believe they are just as aware that they have no idea
           | as to whom they can and cannot be. At the very best, they
           | would have a short list of who they know they cannot be (just
           | like i know i could never be a doctor).
        
         | chefandy wrote:
         | I think people confuse prudent with good. I don't think this
         | person would be delusional enough to think their choices were
         | prudent by "polite" society's standards, especially when
         | describing himself as a crust punk-- a subculture that prides
         | itself on eschewing damn near everything that "polite" society
         | values. However, it's also pretty bullshit that someone who
         | makes art that people want and has an opinion interesting
         | enough to have academic cachet needs to essentially bottom feed
         | to stay afloat in the most fundamental ways. Art is important
         | to humanity, but capitalism isn't super great at supporting
         | things with intrinsic cultural value but no mercantile utility.
         | 
         | Especially since the popularization of AI image generators,
         | many folks in the tech crowd-- few of whom could name a single
         | influential work, author, or organization in arts scholarship--
         | have unwarrantedly strong opinions on the nature of art. They
         | tend to cite the lack of market value in fine art as
         | justification for neither paying artists for their ingested
         | works, nor for the amalgams the produced models spit out. But
         | when confronted with the fact that most artists are not working
         | in fine art, but working commercial artists, they will cite
         | their commercially concerns as evidence that modern art and
         | artists are soulless and not worth protecting to begin with.
         | 
         | Honestly, the longer you work in the arts the more you shrug
         | your shoulders at it. People have spent millennia holding all
         | but the most famous artists and designers in contempt while art
         | in some form, deliberately and thoughtfully made by someone
         | with great skill, imbues nearly every aspect of our cultures.
         | There's always a new cohort of people wanting to extract more
         | out of artists for their own gain-- either in art or income--
         | while calling artists selfish for wanting a slice and telling
         | them to get a "real job". Such is life.
        
         | roughly wrote:
         | > For this artist in particular, I wonder if a steady job would
         | have been a positive or negative to his art.
         | 
         | There's a lot to read between the lines here, but if I were a
         | betting man, I wouldn't put a lot on the author being the sort
         | to maintain a steady job for the long run.
         | 
         | I don't mean that as a critique - the world needs all sorts,
         | but capitalism's got more strict opinions.
        
         | bsder wrote:
         | It's pretty sad, actually, how much negative vibe is here.
         | 
         | This man is hustle culture personified. What's the problem?
         | 
         | Alternatively, he's the epitome of a "disruptor". What's the
         | issue?
         | 
         | Oh, perhaps it's that he's holding up a light at what is at the
         | end of the tunnel if we keep going the way society is--complete
         | instability for the peons who are completely at the whim of a
         | small number of the rich.
        
         | Thorrez wrote:
         | > "[hallucinating] a DJ software skin" to claim as a business
         | expense
         | 
         | I don't think he's claiming a hallucinated skin as a business
         | expense. Rather he's saying the Turbotax UI has some slider in
         | it, and he hallucinates that Turbotax is instead DJ software,
         | and he slides that slider around like a DJ would slide a sound
         | modulator slider around, arriving at a fraudulent number.
        
       | robador wrote:
       | This was a great read and reminiscent of Kerouac (to me). It also
       | makes me think of a life a consciously decided I didn't want
       | after I finished art academy. I've seen others who did and got
       | out after decades of trying and failing. I was lucky to figure
       | out that going to art school to become an artist is a pipe dream.
        
       | mlsu wrote:
       | It's a clever bit.
       | 
       | It is intellectually amusing to read, and I'm sure to write, a
       | character that the reader hates. But the detachment becomes
       | exhausting quick. It's a dead end; you spent all of this effort
       | being clever, with what to show for it? After reading it, I find
       | myself questioning which side of the joke is real and which is
       | false, and whether I'm in the real part of the joke or the false
       | part. Which is ultimately a fruitless exercise, since the whole
       | thing is intentionally set up to be pointless. Got me, I guess?
       | 
       | I do like the visuals though.
        
       | pavlov wrote:
       | The essence and moral of this quite wonderful piece:
       | 
       |  _"No one wants to listen to an artist describe their work, but
       | everyone wants to be told my rib story."_
        
         | bee_rider wrote:
         | That's interesting, I checked out around the rib story.
        
       | cess11 wrote:
       | Could have been worse, could have had a second wife and gone
       | William Tell.
       | 
       | The story about Hollywood was fun.
        
       | reactus wrote:
       | Several commenters here hate the writer, calling him "completely
       | insufferable", "a character that the reader hates", or "a
       | selfish, narcissistic jerk". But I didn't find him that bad? His
       | worst crime was stealing a $4000 suit from Barneys New York.
        
         | platz wrote:
         | so stealing is ok if it's from the wealthy and corporations..
        
           | krapp wrote:
           | Yes.
        
           | spdif899 wrote:
           | generally yea
           | 
           | there's also a big difference between "one guy supposedly
           | stealing one thing as a part of a story" and "let's all go
           | steal"
        
             | platz wrote:
             | when you consider morality, do you think your rule only
             | ever applies to one person or categorically?
        
               | noobermin wrote:
               | No one other than Kant (and really, kant's own delusions
               | about himself) are deontological ethicists. Everyone has
               | exceptions where they think the right thing is context
               | dependent
        
           | dgfitz wrote:
           | It's not, but two others have defended it. Reminds me of how
           | people defend graffiti "artists" for "expressing themselves"
           | despite the fact that it's vandalism.
           | 
           | I believe this train of thought is called "entitled"
        
           | reactus wrote:
           | I didn't say that. Stealing $4k is bad, but I can't say I
           | hate the guy for it. It's not like he ran into the store with
           | a machine gun and murdered the clerk to get the cash in the
           | register. Also the suit anecdote could have been made up
           | anyways.
        
             | platz wrote:
             | is murder the only bad thing in your mind?
             | 
             | can things be bad without being the worst possible thing?
             | 
             | what i'm hearing: its bad but it's not bad because there
             | are worse things that are bad and also I'm "looking the
             | other way"
             | 
             | whether or not it was made up was irrelevant to your
             | initial claim. the proposition is identical in either case.
        
       | dj_mc_merlin wrote:
       | The fact that so many people on HN dislike this proves hacker
       | culture died in programming..
        
         | grzeshru wrote:
         | I don't even understand what there is to dislike. This person
         | lives in misery
        
           | badpun wrote:
           | He stole a $4k suit out of a store, for one thing.
        
             | logicprog wrote:
             | The store will be fine.
        
           | smackeyacky wrote:
           | There is a great deal to dislike. Primarily he is clearly
           | from an affluent family and all his misery could be solved
           | with a phone call.
        
             | grzeshru wrote:
             | What makes it seem like, from this piece anyway, that he is
             | from an affluent family? (I don't know the author/artist
             | whatsoever.) Describe to me the phone call you think ought
             | to take place.
        
         | pyrophane wrote:
         | I read HN almost daily and comment here often, but I don't like
         | the name. I wish they'd chosen to call it something more like
         | "startup news" instead, as that feels like a more accurate
         | representation of the site and its community and standards.
        
           | yoyohello13 wrote:
           | More like "capitalist porn." Mostly seems to just be people
           | salivating over how much wealth they can extract with the
           | next big tech advancements.
        
         | linguae wrote:
         | I don't think hacker culture is dead. Rather, computing entered
         | its Eternal September; a career in software engineering,
         | especially in the United States, now carries a similar cachet
         | to being a doctor or lawyer, and the startup world has
         | attracted those who want to make a fortune. The geeks, nerds,
         | scholars, artists, and other varied misfits who once dominated
         | the field have been outnumbered by those looking for money.
         | 
         | This is the price of computing's success. It's not all bad or
         | all good, it just is a natural consequence of computing
         | becoming an integral part of modern society.
        
           | nothercastle wrote:
           | It's not just money they made so much money they actually
           | dislodged and eliminated the conditions and opportunities
           | that created hacker culture in the first place
        
       | underlipton wrote:
       | The more I read this, the more I dislike the writer. Probably
       | some mixture of disgust and jealousy, as a failed artist who
       | can't bring myself to do/am incapable of doing the things he's
       | done to see some measure of success. Is this what it takes (for
       | an extroverted white dude)?
        
       | labrador wrote:
       | I used to be similarly lost in the drama of my own life, hanging
       | on to things that I felt made me special. It's an ego trap in my
       | opinion, as there are millions of people around us who have
       | extrodinary lives that we never hear about. The word "sonder"
       | applies:
       | 
       |  _Sonder is defined as the profound feeling of realizing that
       | everyone, including strangers passing by on the street, has a
       | life as complex and vivid as your own. They experience hopes,
       | dreams, friendships, routines, worries and an inner life, all of
       | which you 'll likely never know about or fully understand._
       | 
       |  _The term was coined by John Koenig in The Dictionary of Obscure
       | Sorrows, a compendium of newly invented words for powerful
       | feelings that don 't have a descriptive term in the English
       | language._
       | 
       | I had a sponser do me a favor once and tell me "you're a special
       | case of the same old thing." It helped me get over myself.
        
         | p3rls wrote:
         | There's something gross about people trying to force this
         | sonder neologism through but I can't put my finger on it I'm
         | hardly a prescriptivist either
        
           | labrador wrote:
           | I think of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows as an art
           | project. I never got the impression that we were supposed to
           | start using these words. It's interesting and entertaining,
           | like when I learned the Czech word "litost" from "The Book of
           | Laughter and Forgetting" by Milan Kundera. "Litost is a state
           | of torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery."
           | 
           |  _Part five of this book is about Litost, a kind of misery-
           | induced torment only known to the Czech people. You could see
           | it is a Slavic thing._
           | 
           | https://fictionbeast.com/milan-kundera-the-unbearable-
           | ligthn...
           | 
           | Something akin to how I felt trapped in my own drama
        
       | aberzun wrote:
       | Aside from the essay, can somebody please explain to me the
       | appeal of "art works" like the ones that Andrew produces? It's
       | gotta be some kind of joke that I missed the memo on, right!?
        
         | noobermin wrote:
         | They're pretty and or provacative. What else are you looking
         | for?
         | 
         | Beauty is subjective and all that. I liked some of them and
         | disliked others.
        
       | noobermin wrote:
       | This man has lived a life many fantasise about, although perhaps
       | not a very comfortable one. I think sometimes I lived a
       | colourful, varied life but what a story for this piece.
       | 
       | I can't believe I have to do the reddit edit postscriptum but
       | really, does everyone dislike the author? I certainly could never
       | be this sort of person, but what a story, living life on the edge
       | and making it up as they go along. Do commenters never daydream,
       | like just imagine how life would be if things had turned out
       | differently?
        
       | hamburglar1 wrote:
       | This is one of the best, funniest pieces of writing I have read
       | in months - The utter detachment and cynicism displayed around
       | this borderline Hunter S Thompson acid trip is breath of fresh
       | air.
        
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