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I used to feel a bunch of that same pointlessness, and I still do sometimes, but a novel helped me frame what I was feeling. Stoner (1965), by John Williams. It

I used to feel a bunch of that same pointlessness, and I still do sometimes, but a novel helped me frame what I was feeling. Stoner (1965), by John Williams. It is not about drug use. It essentially covers the life of an assistant lit professor born in 1891 that ended up not living up to his expectations in all areas of life and how he handles them internally. It really helped me draw meaning from my life again while I see friends have their money making them money and fly upwards in their careers and build their families. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoner_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoner_(novel)

Loughla 5y ago
I would add The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham to this list as well. The problem with 'living up to your expectations' is that too often it's about material goods that are unbelievably fleeting and temporary. This book, followed through to the end, really helps focus in on that. It was given to me by my dissertation chair during post-grad work. He was attempting to point me to the fact that life doesn't have to be hustle and bustle and break-neck for money. I took it to mean that he thought I should quit school and go back to the farm. There's a lesson in there about clear communication, I think. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Razor%27s_Edge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Razor%27s_Edge
openknot 5y ago
Stoner is one of the best novels I've ever read. He dedicates almost his entire life toward studying literature because he had a passion for it in university, despite never achieving resounding success (not a spoiler, as this is revealed on the first page of the novel). There are wonderful passages like: “In his extreme youth Stoner had thought of love as an absolute state of being to which, if one were lucky, one might find access; in his maturity he had decided it was the heaven of a false religion, toward which one ought to gaze with an amused disbelief, a gently familiar contempt, and an embarrassed nostalgia. Now in his middle age he began to know that it was neither a state of grace nor an illusion; he saw it as a human act of becoming, a condition that was invented and modified moment by moment and day by day, by the will and the intelligence and the heart.”" It changed my view on love and relationships.

Loughla 5y ago

I would add The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham to this list as well. The problem with 'living up to your expectations' is that too often it's about material goods that are unbelievably fleeting and temporary. This book, followed through to the end, really helps focus in on that. It was given to me by my dissertation chair during post-grad work. He was attempting to point me to the fact that life doesn't have to be hustle and bustle and break-neck for money. I took it to mean that he thought I should quit school and go back to the farm. There's a lesson in there about clear communication, I think. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Razor%27s_Edge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Razor%27s_Edge

openknot 5y ago

Stoner is one of the best novels I've ever read. He dedicates almost his entire life toward studying literature because he had a passion for it in university, despite never achieving resounding success (not a spoiler, as this is revealed on the first page of the novel). There are wonderful passages like: “In his extreme youth Stoner had thought of love as an absolute state of being to which, if one were lucky, one might find access; in his maturity he had decided it was the heaven of a false religion, toward which one ought to gaze with an amused disbelief, a gently familiar contempt, and an embarrassed nostalgia. Now in his middle age he began to know that it was neither a state of grace nor an illusion; he saw it as a human act of becoming, a condition that was invented and modified moment by moment and day by day, by the will and the intelligence and the heart.”" It changed my view on love and relationships.