I'd like to ask you and the other readers an open question. Somebody appropriately, I believe, alluded to Fight Club on your last post and incidentally the ideas in Fight Club recur in a lot of Rudius blogs. A lot of people seem to believe the book to be the most poignant commentary on our generation to date.

My question is this: don't you think that these ideas (i.e., freedom from consumerism, the closing of the American mind, the pussyfication of America, etc.) are awfully class-centric? I say class-centric for lack of a better term; not everyone from a middle-class family gets caught up in the American dream. Nor does one's financial background strictly dictate his lifestyle or beliefs. "Very specific to the people who relate to Fight Club, which is not an overwhelming majority if a majority at all."

Most of the people in my social circle (myself included) didn't even go to university, nor get stuck in a dead-end office job. I know more people who've pursued artistic careers,
backpacking and even squatting, regardless of material gain. And they all came from middle-class families with parents who worked in government or for corporations. From my experience, only a portion (to avoid saying minority) of people our age get trapped in the Fight Club predicament. Eventually they freak out, write about it, relate to their peers and they all fall under the impression that our entire generation is stuck in the same rut.

This is an honest question, not a calling out in any sense; does anybody who reads these blogs relate to Rent more than Fight Club? And for those who don't, do you believe or acknowledge that a lot of people in their 20's do, whether from affluent backgrounds or not?

Ben,

If it hurts, it hurts, yeah? We [you, me, everyone else] needs to just suck it up.

"if I'm ever going to fix all the parts of me that are broken I have to first acknowledge that yes, there are parts that are broken."
I like that.

Would you agree that the more honest you are, the better your writing becomes?

If you're not going to be the guy breaking bottles in the street then jump out of a car. Or be the guy who shoots a round into the couch because he just couldn't take the tingling urge to know what would happen.

The problem is that you really want to be the guy who disappears for a month and comes back with a pile of stories that blow the average humans mind, but really, the problem is you're this guy without the budget.

Bottles today, Ben. Bali tomorrow.

Wow. This is EXACTLY what I needed to hear. I'm at the same point as you. You put words to the things I've been trying to figure out the past few days.

However, the only difference is that I'm turning to Ralph Waldo Emerson rather than throwing bottles in the street. Do you know of any good books to read that will help me sort this shit out for myself? Thanks.

Mel -- Yes. The more honest you are with yourself, the better your writing will be. Emotional honesty is really the only way to connect with an audience.

Jeff -- Alaska today, Bali tomorrow. But you're absolutely right.

Dumb Jock -- I'm not sure that a book would help with this. I think this might be one of those things that only experience and a lot of introspection helps with. If there are books, I haven't read any.

Tristan -- I have some thoughts on this but I'll write them up later.

I hope you cleaned up after your tantrum. There's nothing wrong with violently expressing your frustration with life, just be aware of what you are doing, and clean up your goddamn mess after you're calmer. Don't make the mistake of trying to mild your way through life. Anger and frustration are useful emotions, work with them, don't try to control them. And try to switch it up. Break bottles one day, pitch computer monitors off a multi-story building another. (do it safely!)

Ben,

Great post. I understand the thing about honesty and how it's necessary to truly connect with an audience. But for writers, do you think there's a line between emotional honesty and sort of 'saying too much'? In other words, is it necessary/beneficial to transfer all your emotional honesty with yourself into your writing, or are there some things that are better off held back or kept to yourself?

Awesome post and perfect timing. This is very related to what I
recently wrote about as well.

My question is how would this change if you knew no one or very little
people were reading your words? You can essentially do the same
excercise in a jounral but then it's so much easier to cheat. You can
just rip a page out and go on your merry way. You post the same thing
onto a blog with a readership and then attempt to delete the post it's
so much easier for someone to call you out. It seems like then you
have a responsibility not to fail because now you've been honest with
an audience. Is it just a case of more self discipline to hone your
honesty with a small readership or with a journal?

Anon -- what I'm starting to learn is that if you're not willing to give everything to your writing, then why do it? Maybe you don't have to lay bare all the details of your life to your readers, but you can't hide anything from yourself. That's what I've been doing, hiding things from myself.

Drasko -- it's a trade off. If I didn't have a readership then it's much easier to actually put an entry like this down because there's no risk, no one is going to read it. It took something of a gut check to write this and admit "hey, i'm fucked up" not only to myself but also to you guys. So you're right, you guys keep me honest if I later try and delete it or talk my way out of it, but it's also harder to initially write something like this, because I know people are out there reading it.

"I have studied for forty years, and they are so many years wasted; I teach others and am myself ignorant of everything. This state of things fill my soul with such humiliation and disgust, that life is intolerable to me. I have been born into the world, I live in time, and I know not what time is; I find myself in a point between two eternities, as out sages say, and I have no conception of eternity. I am composed of matter, and I can think; yet I have never been able to learn what produces thought; I know not whether my understanding is a simple faculty within me, like that of walking or of digesting food, and whether I think with my head in the same way as I grasp with my hands. Not only is the essential cause of my powers of thought unknown to me, but that of my movements equally obscure; I cannot tell why I exist; yet I am questioned every day on all these points, and I have to answer. I have nothing to say worth hearing, but I say much, and, after talking, I remain confused and ashamed of myself." - From "The Story of A Good Brahmin" by Voltaire

I think this actually does end up affecting a lot more people of this generation than we realize. At the same time I am also left wondering if Fight Club really is the quintessential book of this generation. I'm left wondering this because of what Neil Strauss said in The Game.

"Some people spend their lives trying to fill a hole in their soul. When women don't absorb that emptiness, they look to something bigger; God. I wondered where Dustin and Extramask would turn afterward, when they discovered that even God wasn't being enough to plug the hole inside."

Also, have you read Candide by Voltaire? If you haven't, I recommend you pick it up today. Candide went through sort of the same thing.