6 ms·

People keep saying this is beautify written and stuff, but I feel like I just read a research paper in a topic I don't know about. Am I just dumb, what am I mis

by tayo42 6y ago

People keep saying this is beautify written and stuff, but I feel like I just read a research paper in a topic I don't know about. Am I just dumb, what am I missing here? I feel genuinely confused about what I just read.

hinkley 6y ago
I think this is one of those things that maybe it's okay if you don't understand. In some ways this is about loss, and if you don't 'get it' it doesn't mean you're stupid, it just means you're fortunate.
babesh 6y ago
I think it is for people who love their feelings and fall into them. I also have a lot of trouble relating. I couldn’t stand reading more than 2 paragraphs.
- deanCommie 6y ago
  I'm curious (genuinely), how do you feel about art, paintings, music, and poetry in general? Do you find yourself gravitating to Realism? [1] Or are you comfortable with the abstract? Because I think it's not just about feelings. It's about the comfort with abstractions. The writer is writing EXTREMELY specific narratives that are meant to evoke extremely RELATABLE general feelings. And she is incredible at it. It's a real skill. But it's okay if you don't grasp it. This stuff isn't automatic. However, I will say that you could learn to appreciate it, if you were so inclined. [1] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(arts) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(arts) * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Realism
  - babesh 6y ago
    I like some forms of abstract art. I just don’t particularly like this form. Also, your opinion that the author is relatable is subjective. It is relatable and enjoyable to you just as it is not relatable nor enjoyable to me. To me, this author is the modern form of Jane Austen. Flourishes, flourishes, flourishes. Full of inner dialogue. You overstate the abstractions. They are obvious.
    - deanCommie 6y ago
      The feelings are abstract, not the ideas. I did say meant to invoke relatable feelings. It's not objective or guaranteed that they would in all.
      - babesh 6y ago
        The feelings are yours. The work is designed to invoke feelings. The abstraction of the feelings are in the analysis of the work rather than in the reading. I suppose some people combine the two as they read. I suppose some will put themselves in the place of the author as well. Reading this feels like being trapped into being someone’s therapist.
        coldtea 6y ago
        >I suppose some will put themselves in the place of the author as well. Reading this feels like being trapped into being someone’s therapist. Well, that's empathy. It's not about having the same experiences yourself verbatim so being able to directly relate.
  - elvischidera 6y ago
    How does one learn to appreciate such things? I think my problem is: 1. Fiction: I think it is pointless. I try to watch fictional movies. 2. Information I feel is irrelevant: Say I'm writing, I would prefer: "He proposed to her in a park with friends." To: "The sun stood firm, there was melody in the wind, his body was perfect like diamonds rubbed together. He held her gaze for an eternity, ignorant of his friends at the park. She felt puzzled -- he could see her in a way that would make even Heimdall jealous. Finally, he brought out the ring and proposed." I feel like I'm missing out on a colorful part of life. But my attempts to change this hasn't work (like forcing myself to see more fiction). I'm also motivated to change this to improve conversations (like dates or group conversations). I find more people are into this than me. Thanks.
    - IneffablePigeon 6y ago
      This depends a lot on what sorts of things you do enjoy, I think. There are many ways of enjoying and appreciating writing, fiction, art, etc. You can approach from so many angles. For example, I love science fiction and fantasy, but I love it in a different way to some of my friends. For me, the real enjoyment is about strong characters, story arcs that wouldn't be possible in another genre, and to some extent about getting to the core of how humans relate to each other and what about them is "human" when you put them in a totally different context. For some of my friends it is more about fantastical worlds that are self consistent but have different rules to our own. For others it is about prediction of the future through careful analysis of how a particular technological advance might play out. The narrative is simply a useful vehicle for that analysis. Are there _any_ pieces of fiction that you have enjoyed? Or perhaps biographies or documentaries where the subjects were compelling characters? I would try to find the edges where these things blur a little into interests you already have. But I will admit I find it hard to relate to some extent - I've always loved stories.
    - kdmccormick 6y ago
      Try consuming fiction with friends who enjoy it. Watch a show with them, see a play. Then talk to them about it. Even if you don't find the content enjoyable, you might find their enjoyment of it enjoyable. Vicarous joy is a gateway drug to real joy.
- DoomHotel 6y ago
  Do you hate your feelings and try to run away from them?
  - babesh 6y ago
    The question is whether one feels that this work wallows in feelings.
  - freetime2 6y ago
    I would say as I've gotten older, I've gotten more pragmatic with which feelings I embrace. I've learned over time to not dwell too much on feelings of failure, inadequacy, doubt, etc. I can laugh off certain situations that would have been fairly devastating to me as a younger man. I'm also less patient with others who dwell on such feelings (this is probably a bad thing, something I am working to address), and get annoyed with art that is overly sentimental. To be clear I didn't find this article to be overly sentimental, and I enjoyed reading it... but it was close. You could say this is running away from my feelings, and that's fair. But I don't think I would prefer to have it any other way.
TZubiri 6y ago
Maybe you can point us to the first sentence you don't understand and we can tell you what they mean (to us). If many understand the same thing, then she is a good writer. If we all think we understood different things, then you are a good reader.
- tayo42 6y ago
  It wasn't particularly a sentence or anything. I can try my best to explain though. > the head of the creative department asks me if the courses I would be expected to teach should even exist. “No,” I wish I had said Threw me off. I read the comments first which suggested this was something about changing desires in life. But three days into an interview she wanted she seems to have changed her mind? With no further explanation. I guess we assume she didn't get this job, but it's not clear why she lost her enthusiasm so quickly and months before the rest of this story. After that there's an explanation of plots in fairy tales that switches jarringly again into another line I'm not totally sure how to interpret about bread. Its also the title, I expect it to be important. Tying the fairy tale plot lines back to her sons pointless work was interestingly done. But i feel like I missed how it fit into the bigger picture of this article. > “I can see the wheat,” she says, “growing in the field from outside my window.” I watch a video on how to harvest wheat. I can’t believe I have no machete. I can’t believe I spent so many hours begging universities to hire me, This I don't really get how she goes from wheat to needing machete to cut it to questioning why they want a job > I feel like I’m in Gertrude Stein territory I didn't get this reference, so I think a lot of the last paragraph was lost on me. I asked my girlfriend to read it, she really liked it and thought it was well done.
  - brundolf 6y ago
    It's an advanced writing style that you see a lot in these kinds of personal essays, where the idea is to follow a stream of consciousness, weaving together different ideas that have loose relationships with each other in order to create a kind of mental miasma where the things can mingle together and connect in the reader's mind in various ways. The main subject tends to be triangulated by the constellation of ideas, instead of being addressed directly. Specifically, in this case, the arbitrary and pointless (and impossible?) tasks in the fairytales are related to the arbitrary and pointless interview process. The author wonders what happens to her story when she fails the tasks, just like the characters who fail the tasks and then unceremoniously fall off the narrative map. But she's not a character, she's a real person who goes on living. But that living stops making sense in terms of the narrative that she was following before. I don't totally get the connection with the bread myself. But part of figurative writing is leaving room for ambiguity and further thought.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
xbar 6y ago
Not lovely, from my read.
watwut 6y ago
It is about coming to terms with not getting what you worked for. And about process of adapting to lockdown, trying to come to terms with it and comparing the two.
brundolf 6y ago
It's a series of melancholy musings on the relationship between one's career and identity/self-worth in the context of a society like ours, told through the lens of a) the author's personal career experience and b) fairytales. My takeaway, if I had to reduce it to one (it doesn't really want to be reduced like that), is that many careers in our society consist of jumping through a series of arbitrary and ultimately pointless hoops, in order to eke out some kind of feeling of identity or personal worth. For the people who fail these challenges, there is no story. They lose their story, in some sense, unless they reframe it around something different. The author is able to be aware of this state of affairs despite remaining subject to it on some level.
- one2three4 6y ago
  That sumup is gold. Thanks.
ptrklly 6y ago
I felt it was beautiful but I don’t think you should feel dumb you didn’t also think it was beautiful! I think it’s not a set of facts, where there are right and wrong interpretations, so research paper might be the wrong analogy. For me, I think she made me feel what it would be like to work toward an achievement, to fail, and to look back and contemplate on the idea that maybe the achievement was arbitrary and as simplistic and fantastical as a fairy tale. I understand, conceptually, that people work toward achievements and respond to incentives like more money or promotion or power. And I understand, logically, that people often mis-identify what outcomes matter to them, and are instead working toward something that won’t ever provide satisfaction, all while the work exhausts them. But I rarely contemplate that idea, marinate in it, feel it. She made me feel it. And she also made me realize that I’m also doing the same thing, and that I likely will some day look back on my life right now and contemplate that maybe everything I’m working for is simplistic and fantastical and not going to accomplish whatever it is I really want. I’m curious, could you share some writing that made you feel something, and it made you feel?
rukuu001 6y ago
It’s just not for you, and that’s ok.
emerged 6y ago
It was well written, but has the affect of an apparently quite depressed existential crisis. I’m not in that emotional place in my life so I didn’t really enjoy it, but since I have been in the place before I’m at least able to recognize it. I’d imagine many of the people it’s striking a chord with are in a similar place so they feel represented enough by the affect to appreciate it as beautiful.
hnarn 6y ago
There's nothing wrong with being confused by prose, or poetry, or art in general. You're free to like it or dislike it regardless of whether you feel you "understand" it or whether your understanding corresponds to that of others.
coldtea 6y ago
>Am I just dumb, what am I missing here? Probably a way to make sense of something not said explicitly and a little empathy. I struggle with those myself in person, but I'm good at reading the clues in prose. This here is a prose piece with some lyrical elements about: (a) the struggle of having a job you studied and dreamt to do and realizing it's not valued by the world, and might not even be relevant anymore in the general turmoil (which also makes your personal troubles seem irrelevant or a luxury). It also describes the big and little ways people you apply to work for belittle you and what you have to offer, and the person going through these realizations feeling a sense of loss of themselves and their purpose, set amidst the general covid changes. Also offers a glimpse of the author's work as a writer/poet (either directly, or through them using fairy tales as analogies), and the irrelevance by which it is met (or so it feels to them).

by tayo42 6y ago

hinkley 6y ago

I think this is one of those things that maybe it's okay if you don't understand. In some ways this is about loss, and if you don't 'get it' it doesn't mean you're stupid, it just means you're fortunate.

babesh 6y ago

I think it is for people who love their feelings and fall into them. I also have a lot of trouble relating. I couldn’t stand reading more than 2 paragraphs.

deanCommie 6y ago
I'm curious (genuinely), how do you feel about art, paintings, music, and poetry in general? Do you find yourself gravitating to Realism? [1] Or are you comfortable with the abstract? Because I think it's not just about feelings. It's about the comfort with abstractions. The writer is writing EXTREMELY specific narratives that are meant to evoke extremely RELATABLE general feelings. And she is incredible at it. It's a real skill. But it's okay if you don't grasp it. This stuff isn't automatic. However, I will say that you could learn to appreciate it, if you were so inclined. [1] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(arts) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(arts) * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Realism
- babesh 6y ago
  I like some forms of abstract art. I just don’t particularly like this form. Also, your opinion that the author is relatable is subjective. It is relatable and enjoyable to you just as it is not relatable nor enjoyable to me. To me, this author is the modern form of Jane Austen. Flourishes, flourishes, flourishes. Full of inner dialogue. You overstate the abstractions. They are obvious.
  - deanCommie 6y ago
    The feelings are abstract, not the ideas. I did say meant to invoke relatable feelings. It's not objective or guaranteed that they would in all.
    - babesh 6y ago
      The feelings are yours. The work is designed to invoke feelings. The abstraction of the feelings are in the analysis of the work rather than in the reading. I suppose some people combine the two as they read. I suppose some will put themselves in the place of the author as well. Reading this feels like being trapped into being someone’s therapist.
      - coldtea 6y ago
        >I suppose some will put themselves in the place of the author as well. Reading this feels like being trapped into being someone’s therapist. Well, that's empathy. It's not about having the same experiences yourself verbatim so being able to directly relate.
- elvischidera 6y ago
  How does one learn to appreciate such things? I think my problem is: 1. Fiction: I think it is pointless. I try to watch fictional movies. 2. Information I feel is irrelevant: Say I'm writing, I would prefer: "He proposed to her in a park with friends." To: "The sun stood firm, there was melody in the wind, his body was perfect like diamonds rubbed together. He held her gaze for an eternity, ignorant of his friends at the park. She felt puzzled -- he could see her in a way that would make even Heimdall jealous. Finally, he brought out the ring and proposed." I feel like I'm missing out on a colorful part of life. But my attempts to change this hasn't work (like forcing myself to see more fiction). I'm also motivated to change this to improve conversations (like dates or group conversations). I find more people are into this than me. Thanks.
  - IneffablePigeon 6y ago
    This depends a lot on what sorts of things you do enjoy, I think. There are many ways of enjoying and appreciating writing, fiction, art, etc. You can approach from so many angles. For example, I love science fiction and fantasy, but I love it in a different way to some of my friends. For me, the real enjoyment is about strong characters, story arcs that wouldn't be possible in another genre, and to some extent about getting to the core of how humans relate to each other and what about them is "human" when you put them in a totally different context. For some of my friends it is more about fantastical worlds that are self consistent but have different rules to our own. For others it is about prediction of the future through careful analysis of how a particular technological advance might play out. The narrative is simply a useful vehicle for that analysis. Are there _any_ pieces of fiction that you have enjoyed? Or perhaps biographies or documentaries where the subjects were compelling characters? I would try to find the edges where these things blur a little into interests you already have. But I will admit I find it hard to relate to some extent - I've always loved stories.
  - kdmccormick 6y ago
    Try consuming fiction with friends who enjoy it. Watch a show with them, see a play. Then talk to them about it. Even if you don't find the content enjoyable, you might find their enjoyment of it enjoyable. Vicarous joy is a gateway drug to real joy.
DoomHotel 6y ago
Do you hate your feelings and try to run away from them?
- babesh 6y ago
  The question is whether one feels that this work wallows in feelings.
- freetime2 6y ago
  I would say as I've gotten older, I've gotten more pragmatic with which feelings I embrace. I've learned over time to not dwell too much on feelings of failure, inadequacy, doubt, etc. I can laugh off certain situations that would have been fairly devastating to me as a younger man. I'm also less patient with others who dwell on such feelings (this is probably a bad thing, something I am working to address), and get annoyed with art that is overly sentimental. To be clear I didn't find this article to be overly sentimental, and I enjoyed reading it... but it was close. You could say this is running away from my feelings, and that's fair. But I don't think I would prefer to have it any other way.

TZubiri 6y ago

Maybe you can point us to the first sentence you don't understand and we can tell you what they mean (to us). If many understand the same thing, then she is a good writer. If we all think we understood different things, then you are a good reader.

tayo42 6y ago
It wasn't particularly a sentence or anything. I can try my best to explain though. > the head of the creative department asks me if the courses I would be expected to teach should even exist. “No,” I wish I had said Threw me off. I read the comments first which suggested this was something about changing desires in life. But three days into an interview she wanted she seems to have changed her mind? With no further explanation. I guess we assume she didn't get this job, but it's not clear why she lost her enthusiasm so quickly and months before the rest of this story. After that there's an explanation of plots in fairy tales that switches jarringly again into another line I'm not totally sure how to interpret about bread. Its also the title, I expect it to be important. Tying the fairy tale plot lines back to her sons pointless work was interestingly done. But i feel like I missed how it fit into the bigger picture of this article. > “I can see the wheat,” she says, “growing in the field from outside my window.” I watch a video on how to harvest wheat. I can’t believe I have no machete. I can’t believe I spent so many hours begging universities to hire me, This I don't really get how she goes from wheat to needing machete to cut it to questioning why they want a job > I feel like I’m in Gertrude Stein territory I didn't get this reference, so I think a lot of the last paragraph was lost on me. I asked my girlfriend to read it, she really liked it and thought it was well done.
- brundolf 6y ago
  It's an advanced writing style that you see a lot in these kinds of personal essays, where the idea is to follow a stream of consciousness, weaving together different ideas that have loose relationships with each other in order to create a kind of mental miasma where the things can mingle together and connect in the reader's mind in various ways. The main subject tends to be triangulated by the constellation of ideas, instead of being addressed directly. Specifically, in this case, the arbitrary and pointless (and impossible?) tasks in the fairytales are related to the arbitrary and pointless interview process. The author wonders what happens to her story when she fails the tasks, just like the characters who fail the tasks and then unceremoniously fall off the narrative map. But she's not a character, she's a real person who goes on living. But that living stops making sense in terms of the narrative that she was following before. I don't totally get the connection with the bread myself. But part of figurative writing is leaving room for ambiguity and further thought.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

xbar 6y ago

Not lovely, from my read.

watwut 6y ago

It is about coming to terms with not getting what you worked for. And about process of adapting to lockdown, trying to come to terms with it and comparing the two.

brundolf 6y ago

It's a series of melancholy musings on the relationship between one's career and identity/self-worth in the context of a society like ours, told through the lens of a) the author's personal career experience and b) fairytales. My takeaway, if I had to reduce it to one (it doesn't really want to be reduced like that), is that many careers in our society consist of jumping through a series of arbitrary and ultimately pointless hoops, in order to eke out some kind of feeling of identity or personal worth. For the people who fail these challenges, there is no story. They lose their story, in some sense, unless they reframe it around something different. The author is able to be aware of this state of affairs despite remaining subject to it on some level.

one2three4 6y ago
That sumup is gold. Thanks.

ptrklly 6y ago

I felt it was beautiful but I don’t think you should feel dumb you didn’t also think it was beautiful! I think it’s not a set of facts, where there are right and wrong interpretations, so research paper might be the wrong analogy. For me, I think she made me feel what it would be like to work toward an achievement, to fail, and to look back and contemplate on the idea that maybe the achievement was arbitrary and as simplistic and fantastical as a fairy tale. I understand, conceptually, that people work toward achievements and respond to incentives like more money or promotion or power. And I understand, logically, that people often mis-identify what outcomes matter to them, and are instead working toward something that won’t ever provide satisfaction, all while the work exhausts them. But I rarely contemplate that idea, marinate in it, feel it. She made me feel it. And she also made me realize that I’m also doing the same thing, and that I likely will some day look back on my life right now and contemplate that maybe everything I’m working for is simplistic and fantastical and not going to accomplish whatever it is I really want. I’m curious, could you share some writing that made you feel something, and it made you feel?

rukuu001 6y ago

It’s just not for you, and that’s ok.

emerged 6y ago

It was well written, but has the affect of an apparently quite depressed existential crisis. I’m not in that emotional place in my life so I didn’t really enjoy it, but since I have been in the place before I’m at least able to recognize it. I’d imagine many of the people it’s striking a chord with are in a similar place so they feel represented enough by the affect to appreciate it as beautiful.

hnarn 6y ago

There's nothing wrong with being confused by prose, or poetry, or art in general. You're free to like it or dislike it regardless of whether you feel you "understand" it or whether your understanding corresponds to that of others.

coldtea 6y ago

>Am I just dumb, what am I missing here? Probably a way to make sense of something not said explicitly and a little empathy. I struggle with those myself in person, but I'm good at reading the clues in prose. This here is a prose piece with some lyrical elements about: (a) the struggle of having a job you studied and dreamt to do and realizing it's not valued by the world, and might not even be relevant anymore in the general turmoil (which also makes your personal troubles seem irrelevant or a luxury). It also describes the big and little ways people you apply to work for belittle you and what you have to offer, and the person going through these realizations feeling a sense of loss of themselves and their purpose, set amidst the general covid changes. Also offers a glimpse of the author's work as a writer/poet (either directly, or through them using fairy tales as analogies), and the irrelevance by which it is met (or so it feels to them).