text II is active, moved by pleasure
Joined March 2015
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my agent said it’s easier working with nonfiction writers than fiction writers because nonfiction writers “have already been hurt by life in all sorts of ways” lmao
allowing people to own their problems is a huge act of kindness. this does NOT mean you can’t help them, or be kind and patient. a lot of people conflate help with “stopping someone from feeling hard feelings” or “shielding them from the consequences of their own actions.” the latter is enabling, and it takes away someone’s opportunity to learn, and prevents them from fully living in reality
The rule for women is usually if they leave you, they wanted to half way through the relationship. Women tend to stick it out to be sure about the decision. They tell you whats wrong and try to communicate. They give second third fourth chances. If you were together 2 years, she was debating this a year ago and just finally pulled the trigger. Theres no regrets. Its only questioning why you didnt do it sooner. By the time they leave they already went through all the stages of grief and are done. Guys often think it came out of nowhere bc they didnt care when she was clearly miserable and men often will stay in relationships they dont like purely out of convenience and having a bangmaid or other benefits. Relationships arent the same cost to men so staying anyway is still a net positive.
Finally leaving feels so good. Theyll never get it. Unless you compare it to prison.
Ava retweeted
Don't be fooled by the hype. This is THREE THOUSAND PAGES of turgid, lugubrious prose of unpleasant, unattractive, clinically depressed rich people ineptly manipulating each another.
for most people, the optimal amount of self-delusion is not zero. certain beliefs function almost as a protective bubble (as visa pointed out) to preserve the status quo and shield the person from knowledge they can’t handle. for instance, if you’re living in a way that’s heavily suboptimal and even harmful to you, but you don’t currently have the capacity to act, it can be healthy to be somewhat delusional/ignorant about what’s actually going on. however, sufficently large amounts of delusion become malignant in the sense that you end up willfully misrepresenting yourself and how you act over time to other people. I’ve found a good marker of psychological maturity/“good-naturedness” to be how someone acts when you poke at/temporarily puncture the protective bubble. whether they can integrate it or not, mature people are usually able to be like “Yes, I could see how I might be wrong about that,” whereas lashing out/further doubling down is usually a sign if a deep commitment to denial
I’m sorry I yelled at you babe I’m just fighting against the glorification of emotional restraint in contemporary litfic
I’ve read a lot of shitty contemporary books over the past year, including Normal People, The Topeka School, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, and Flesh.
These books all have something in common, and it’s exactly what makes them so empty: they all glorify emotional restraint.
Such is the great disease of contemporary literary fiction, and its symptoms are sparse prose, flat dialogue, emotionally detached characters, and an absence of philosophical depth. For some reason, however, we’ve decided that these hallmarks are the epitome of literary sophistication.
All of these novels are observational rather than transformative; their characters no longer grapple with the great questions of human existence but simply drift through their petty lives: they have sex, smoke cigarettes, drink coffee, and exchange banal observations about their miserable circumstances.
Never do they experience spiritual or emotional transformation.
Literary minimalism strips literature of the only thing that makes it worth reading: the human soul.