I sought out this page, compelled by nothing to my knowledge, of Charles Bukowski quotes as a reminder of what I had been reading back whenever.
It’s difficult to digest; there’s something in me turning my cheek away. It’s not that I don’t want it, but that I can’t very much afford it. Take this quote:
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“It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?”
—Factotum, 1975
Since I’ve been working a whole lot more in recent months, it’s difficult to accept this sentiment. I know he’s right, and I know it’s an important consideration. But allowing myself to feel this beneath the cerebral level would hurt too much. There is some practicality to this numbness, namely in evading the destructiveness of perceiving yourself as life’s maleficiary. But I know, because I can feel it from within me, it’s partially that the buzz will hurt my ears too much if I listen to the cacophony heard from the outside.
This is what it feels like. This is what it feels like having to construct your world so you don’t stay up too late and think about things in the silence.
I now know, because I am here, that maturity is only tacit nihilism.
