Checked out from the library. This copy is highlighted and there are scribbled notes. Curious if it was donated like this, or if someone did this while borrowed. I can not be sure if they’re creditable in their highlighting opinions. I came to read this book after clipping (and highlighting) an interview I read in The Brooklyn Rail —
Q: The Housing Benefit and Social Security during the Thatcher era allowed you to live “on the dole” during your post-collegiate years in England, which may have encouraged a feeling of kinship with the Beats and the bohemian way of life. But in New York City at the moment, where everything’s so expensive, there’s a suspicion that certain people can afford to live like bohemians—to sit in cafés and try to write novels, for example—only because they’re supported by trust funds, don’t have to pay off student loans, etc. Do you think that bohemians still exist, and if so, where?
A: In Williamsburg! Bohemians have always been rich, either because they’re sons or daughters of industrialists or financiers or, as in Paris in the 1920s, because of the exchange rate. You know, Thoreau has his dad’s pencil factory behind him and a free place to live on Emerson’s land—I forget the exact details of the arrangement. Burroughs has his…whatever it was that he had! Living poor has often been an indulgence. I suppose I’d throw the question back at you and ask if you don’t think that is quite a good way for privileged kids to spend their time, trying to write a novel? It’s more honorable than being a merchant banker.
On a very different level, we have DH Lawrence who, although he hated bohemians, led what might be seen as a bohemian life and certainly hung out with a load of boho toffs. Obviously he didn’t have a lot of money and he was unbelievably thrifty. (One of the delights of the Brenda Maddox biography is seeing just how thrifty he was.) But at the same time, he always knew what a huge privilege it was, living as he did. So what if he had to travel third class? The countless small economies counted for nothing in the face of the huge freedom to do what he wanted. Same with me: I had to get buses instead of a taxi—big deal. At least I didn’t have to get up in the morning and go to work! And I still feel the same actually, still can’t bear to take taxis. My background is working class and it’s proved difficult to shake off the habits ingrained in me my by parents, who of course lived through the depression of the 1930s. I could live quite happily on very little money, because most of the shit on offer isn’t worth having.
and later…
So, yes, I try to be happy, but that is the hallmark of the basically unhappy person. Plus, I’m one of those people who was sort of born bored.
Last March I was in San Francisco and read the the only book I found by him at the bookstore there, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi. Naturally, I don’t remember much about it other than the form and there was a bit of sex. I liked the book. I think I gave it to Kim when I moved last.
I read too many blogs about GTD (getting things done), & good habits, & start-ups, & entrepreneurs, etc. Consuming loads of advice without acting on any of it. They’ll recommend some book, I’ll look at it, and it’s all common sense and generally pretty boring. Now, instead, I’ll see if they have a long interview with the author on youtube or a podcast. I figured I’d do this with Dyer. Lo and behold, he’d been on This American Life. I listened to this segment 3x and it resonated with me. The whole book is exploring all the things we do to avoid ‘working’ — an issue I have.
The perfect life, the perfect lie, is one which prevents you from doing that which you would ideally have done, painted, say, or written unpublishable poetry, but which, in fact, you’ve no wish to do. People need to feel that they’ve been thwarted by circumstances from pursuing the life which, had they led it, they would not have wanted. Whereas the life they really want is precisely a compound of all those thwarting circumstances. It’s a very elaborate, extremely simple procedure, arranging this web of self-deceit, contriving to convince yourself that you were prevented from doing what you wanted.
Most people don’t want what they want. People want to be prevented, restricted. The hamster not only loves his cage, he’d be lost without it.
…
I’ve devoted more of my life to thoughts of giving up than anyone else I can think of. Nietzsche wrote that the thought of suicide had got him through many a bad night. And thinking of giving up is probably the one thing that’s kept me going. I think about it on a daily basis, but always come up against the problem of what to do when I’ve given up. Give up one thing, and you’re immediately obliged to do something else.
…
Should anyone flatter us by asking what we’re looking for, what we are searching for, then we think immediately, almost instinctively in vast terms. God, fulfillment, love. But our lives are actually made up of lots of tiny searches for things like a CD we are not sick of, an out-of-print edition of Phoenix, a picture of DH Lawrence that I saw when I was 17, another identical pair of suede shoes to the ones that I’m wearing now. Add them together, and these little things make up an epic quest, more than enough for one lifetime.
The TAL segment does sum up the book, but the rest of it is really enjoyable. I read the whole book in less than 3 days. It was nice to read along with someone else’s thoughts and struggles about living a creative life.
The answer to my slump is to just get on with it.