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That reminds me of another wolf, Gene Wolfe. He wrote some of the most complex and critically praised science fiction to date, and most of his famous works were
by svachalek 1y ago
That reminds me of another wolf, Gene Wolfe. He wrote some of the most complex and critically praised science fiction to date, and most of his famous works were done in his free time while working as an industrial engineer. Or for that matter, a certain patent clerk who wrote some really fine physics papers.
- throwawayoldie 1y agoOther examples: Baruch Spinoza, lensmaker by day, philosopher by night. Philip Glass: moving man, plumber, cab driver, and avant-garde composer. E. E. "Doc" Smith: food engineer and science fiction writer. Franz Kafka: administrator in an insurance company, and writer of history's weirdest books. Wallace Stevens: insurance company executive and poet. William Carlos Williams: doctor and poet. And these are just off the top of my head.
- jddj 1y agoBukowski: pickle factory for a while then 13ish years at the united states postal service
- volkk 1y agoand a lot of his work revolves around working at the post office and pickle factory
- namanyayg 1y agoThis is messing with my head. I love Spinoza and Kafka and couldn't imagine them as anything else but being full-time thinkers and writers.
- throwanem 1y agoWho told you they weren't? Are you only a programmer or a thinker about programming while at keys?
- volkk 1y agoi think by full time they meant sitting around in some dingy room, smoking cigarettes and positing/thinking rather than filling most of their days with other activities that have nothing to do with this craft (and i would say to posit well, you need life experiences and they did exactly what they needed to do to become legendary)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- throwanem 1y ago'Another county heard from.'
- throwawayoldie 1y agoThanks for dropping by. No need to hurry back.
- throwanem 1y agoThanks for that substantive contribution.
- nisegami 1y agoPersonally, the line between 'administrator in an insurance company' and Kafka's works fits neatly within my mental model of the world.
- throwawayoldie 1y agoWhich makes me wonder what he called the kind of experience a person has when dealing with an insurance company: the word "Kafkaesque" didn't exist yet.
- gjm11 1y ago"Inspiration", perhaps.
- Apocryphon 1y agoAnthony Trollope worked at the post office, Andy Weir was a programmer until he hit it big with The Martian.
- cma 1y agoRobert Frost was an insurance guy or something
- throwawayoldie 1y agoJust took a look at Wikipedia. No mention of insurance, but he did write much of his early work while farming during the day. As did Robert Burns.
- cma 1y agoWas thinking of T.S. Eliot, worked at Lloyds but in banking not insurance.
- Animats 1y agoNo, Frost was a teacher and a farmer to make money.[1] Tom Clancy was an insurance agent. [1] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Frost https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Frost
- rikroots 1y agoWilfred Owen: soldier and poet (whose poetry was ignored/neglected until the 1960s)
- Awesomedonut 1y agoTIL Kafka worked in insurance... wild!