*** “If you’re going to try, go all the way.
Otherwise, don’t even start.
This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind.
It could mean not eating for three or four days.
It could mean freezing on a park bench.
It could mean jail.
It could mean derision.
It could mean mockery — isolation.
Isolation is a gift.
All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it.
And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds.
And it will be better than anything else you can imagine.
If you’re going to try, go all the way.
There is no other feeling like that.
You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire.
You will ride life straight to perfect laughter.
It’s the only good fight there is.” ***
- Charles Bukowski Born: August 16, 1920, Andernach, Germany Died: March 9, 1994 (age 73 years)
If this hit your fancy than I suggest watching his bio-pic "Factotum". Pretty red-pilled perspective on life. Not saying you should view the guy as a role model. Barley anyone is. But there something to gain from his perspective and life experience.
The movie takes the rose tint glasses off life. And just looks at living.
First-light 2 3h ago
Bukowski was a bit of a mess. A drunk who had a poor work history and toxic, sometimes violent relationships with the kind of women we would suggest any man vetted out of his life. Its very much the life that we would suggest a man who got in control of himself and his destiny, should aim to avoid.
Bukowski saw flickers of great beauty. He was an outsider (as many men are today) yet he never gave up on his genius. In spite of all his personal shortcomings which held him back, he showed us some of the beauty he saw and with some feeling that rings true.
Like all of us he was a mix of greatness and failure, perhaps a more polarised mix than most of us. But for men today, marginalised and often lacking fulfilment, who feel they still have something more to give, deserve to find something more from life and from love, he still has a relevancy and meaning as the lines you quote above show.
I had better check out the movie you suggest.
SeasonedRP 2 1d ago
Barfly is worth watching, though you'll feel like showering after seeing all the seedy bar scenes.