What a joy it must be to be a truly great writer, even if it means a
shotgun at the finish. -Bukowski
Bukowski was no doubt thinking of Hemmingway when he wrote this. He
thought Hemmingway had style for killing himself with a shotgun.
If you had a choice between being ordinary, or truly great at something
that would cost you your life by suicide, which would you choose?
I'd say that's quite a poor range of choices ...
ReplyDeletebesides that I think that there is worse than 'being ordinary' ...
what about just 'being great' without the suicidal part (which I think is a rather sad and selfish option for an end) ...
killing yourself with a shotgun (or any other method) got nothing to do with style, but is a final form of giving up or failure ...
Chuck Palahniuk concluded the point of life wasn't to live as long as possible. The point was to create something that would live beyond us. Being truly great at something is a form of immortality.
ReplyDeleteThe most impressive thing about Bukowski was that despite the most appalling cirucmstances, he never killed himself. He thougt nobility was suffering and enduring. He wrote a poem about it, called "Measurements From the Creation Coffin". It's one of my favorites.
In the poem he writes "if you read this after I am long dead it means I made it".