Hey, best buddy, grow a pair, drop the fuckin medicine program bullshit and just go be a writer like you want to. The university is just the biggest fish in a small pond anyway, you could have gone to Johnny Hopkins if you wanted to, and I don’t even know what the fuck that is. Quit letting this ideal-post-high-school-stepping-stone-to-a-rewarding-career nonsense deter you from what is really going to make you happy. It’ll take time and hard work, and a lot of people won’t see it and they’ll think you’re doing nothing with your life, but it’ll be worth it, man. —Small Pond Kid
This article appears in Aug 16-22, 2012.
I missed something here. He’s going to medical school as a stepping stone to becoming a writer? The next Robin Cook?
Off topic. I’m the first responder, that never happens.
nah, i think his friend is going to med school but his heart’s desire is to be a writer. OP is telling him to drop out and be studs terkel instead.
either do all that, or just go west young man, just go west. a lot of others are.
What an idiot, some friend you are. The world is full of starving writers, artists, etc. Your friend is smart, get their medical degree, do something useful, make some money, and then do their writing without worrying about starving to death.
I believe he wants his buddy to become a farmer and grow a pair. Maybe an orange, a couple of apples and some grapes.
EXCELLENT ADVICE
Small Pond’s advice to BEST BUDDY to forget about taking medicine and becoming a writer instead is excellent. There are those, of course, who will claim that it is not the practical thing to do, it’s not useful, there’s no money in it, and so on. Best buddy, forget them. They are mental pedestrians, mindless pragmatists. They do not understand the mind of the writer or why he writes. The concepts are alien to them.
Tn a nutshell Best Buddy, to write, even in such a humble way as one finds here on Bitch is – are you ready for this? – TO COME INTO BEING! It is TO COME INTO EXISTENCE! There is a profound truth to the saying that one really doesn’t know what one thinks until one puts in into words and what one thinks, of course, is WHO ONE IS! If the concept of identity has any meaning in this computerized, digitalized and self-tracking time where nothing is real unless it is reduced to an external, numerical and objectivized form, writing embodies that identity. It is the exteriorizing of one’s interiority. You are what you write!
Transcend the computerized, digitalized and falsely objectivized identity of “Quantitative Man,” Best Buddy, and assume your rightful stature as “Qualitative Man.”
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
I couldn’t agree more. moman. My own daughter started college last year, and hated the first year of the 2 year program she had chosen. I told her not to pay for another year of something that’s not going to make her happy. After all, she does have to work after college.
While at work, in the mean time, she met a young girl whose parents are deaf, and this girl taught my daughter some sign language. She took to it like a duck to water. She just completed 2 prerequisites, finishing in the 90’s. Now she is beginning deaf studies next week, and she loves it. Don’t waste time doing something you hate.
Now all she has to do is go around blowing out everyone’s ear drums and she can rule the world! Hell, at least she likes it.
This person can do both… if they enjoy writing that much, they’ll decide to do it in their spare time.
As it stands, we’re in dire need of medical practitioners.
Don’t shit on him and tell him to fuck off… Grandma won’t be diagnosed that way.
ZZZ??? you mean one should choose one’s occupation based on the NEEDS of the masses? and not on one’s own interest?
erk!
Kontee, your daughter is going to school to learn her profession where there is a marketable career and there is absolutely nothng wrong with that. University isn’t for everybody but everybody needs to learn a trade/skill or whatever to be able to support themselves and families. To quit to write the Great Canadian Novel is asinine and most professional, SUCCESSFUL novelists would tell you that. For every Tom Clancy or Stephen King, there are tens of thousands out there typing into their laptops at Starbucks.
As a matter of fact if you check with their biographies, most if not all, of the successful authors wrote in their free time while working in other careers and jobs or retired.
EXCELLENT ADVICE (II)
RSVPs
“You could have gone to Johny Hopkins if you had wanted to, and I don’t even know what the fuck that is.” Small Pond
Well, Small Pond, Johns Hopins University in Baltimore is the best medical school in the United States and probably the world. It is a measure of Best Buddy’s VOCATION (note the capitalization) that he chose to write instead of going there. This confusion between a VOCATION and a simple job lies at the heart of the confused comments on your advice and, hopefully, his decision.
: Kontee McZihidolz (08/23, 10:06AM)
Your daughter was fortunate in being “turned on” to a career that she loves. In fact, I suppose you could call it a VOCATION. For the vast majority, of course, a VOCATION is an alien concept which doesn’t register on their frontal lobes. Congratulations!
: FireragezZz (10:49AM)
As expected, FireragezZz divulges the groundbreaking news what “we’re in dire need of medical practitioners.” So what? Totally irrelevant to the issue of one’s VOCATION, of course, but then FireragezZz is unable to grasp the issue at all. He then goes on to counsel Small Pond (or somebody) with the sage advice: “Don’t shit on him and tell him to fuck off. Grandma won’t be diagnosd that way.” So what? It is true that grandma won’t be diagnosed that way but then that was never the issuei the first place. In addition to being incoherent – no one is telling anyone to “fuck off” – the advice is irrelevant but, naturally, FireragezZz is, as usual, unable to grasp that.
: Good dog Molly (11:06AM)
Good dog strikes a falsely moralistic pose in contrasting “the needs of the masses” which, of course, she favours as opposed to “one’s own interests” which, of course, she doesn’t. You see, the latter is being selfsh while the former is not. But, as with the other commenters, Good dog is unable to grasp the concept of a VOCATION which trumps her false dichotomy every time. A VOCATION is not the same thing as being identical to one’s own interests, at least not in Good dog’s sense of the phrase. But she doesn’t understand this.
: Bro Tim (1:03PM & 1:08PM)
As would be expected, the concept of a VOCATION is alien to Dim Bro Tim whose sole criterion is that of “marketability.” If it’s marketable, then Dim Bro is for it. If it isn’t, then Dim Bro is against it. That’s as far as it goes with Dim Bro Tim.
In his second post, Dim Bro has it reversed. If you look at the careers of successful authors, it was their piddling jobs and not their writing which they did in their spare time. It’s callled a VOCATION, Dim Bro.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
I saw some z’s in that idiotic wall of txt.
you must be very egotistical if you think I read your posts…
oh wait, from what I remember, you are.
jackass.
mm you idiot, re-read my comment
Just ignore the blue waffle, zed. It’s much better that way.
I wonder how long it took PHD (Piled Higher and Deeper)MM to come up with a classic like Dim Tim. An education well wasted. A vocation is fine and dandy, but if it doesn’t put food on the table, then you starve. I’m sure a brite boy like u can figure that out.
go be a writer, but don’t quit your day time job otherwise you are just a bum that likes to write.
As a writer/MD the guy could write an “instructional” 50 Shades type book and be able to charge more for it.
Excellent Advice (III)
RSVPs
: FireragezZz (08/23, 4:06PM)
Of course I neither know nor care if you read my posts. It’s not only because I know you wouldn’t understand them. It’s because I also know that you are and will always remain a dribbling half-wit.
: Good dog Molly (4:16PM)
Well, Good dog, it’s possible I misread your post but you must be clearer. I did re-read it but was still mystified. I was suprised at what I thought was its mindlessness from you and I responded accordingly. Sorry if I was wrong.
: Pretty Kitty (4:36PM)
I take it you’re referring to me as the “Blue Waffle.” PK, I always thought that was your sort of thing, you know, your body and its functions and all that which defined the parameters of your “thought.” Do not venture out of your depth PK. You must be cautious.
: Bro Tim (6:24PM)
Dim Bro, you would never have the faintest idea of what a Ph.D. looks, smells, or feels like. This is because you not only lack the wit to understand what it involves but also because you would never have the remotest possibility of undertaking one. Like PK, you must never venture into matters which are out of your intellectual depth. Food or starve, that’s about as far as Dim Bro can take it. I won’t say raise your sights Dim Bro, because I know they are firmly fixed on the ground in front of you.
: Great Value (7:01PM)
Well GV, that and $1.76 will get you a cup of coffee at Tim’s.
: Boru 1014. (7:23PM)
Just think.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
MM
I admit I’m no genus but I wonder what I did this time that would warrent you to tell me to “just think”?
Are you in agreement with my advise for OB”s friend to write an instructional “soft porn” manual?
Are you trying to entice me to “talk dirty” to you(MM)?
Don’t worry Boru, MM is a legend in his own mind.
I know a few writers who get paid as collaborators, helping 5 or 6 non writers who do sports commentary.. They do all right. They’re also in big city Toronto.
MM. You like to hear yourself babble and “think” you are better than everyone.
I pity you. Really I do.
EXCELLENT ADVICE (IV)
RSVPs
: Boru (08/24, 12:15AM)
Well Boru, given the context of the commenters on “Excellent Advice (III), I suppose I was being a touch sarcastic. There is the point, however, that a VOCATION in writing is not commonly associated, except in my case of course, with writing an “instructional porn manual” but yes, Boru, I do want you to talk dirty to me.
: Dim Bro Tim (12:32AM)
“… a legend in his own mind.”
Dim Bro when I read that, tears of joy sprang into my eyes. It was so beautiful and original. Dim Bro, I want to frame it and hang it on my wall. I’ll have your signature, “Dim Bro Tim,” inscribed in the lower right corner. Thanks for that, Dim Bro. You’re magnificent.
: Daniel Abraham (5:35AM)
I live in big city too, Daniel. It feel good to live in big city,
: Senor Campana (7:15AM)
Senor, you must remember that what is “babble” to you is actually reflective thought of considerable quality. Now your babble, on the other hand, really is babble.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
MM
I was being more than a touch sarcastic with my suggestion for the guy to write an “instructional porn manual” as a VOCATION.I thought it was evident I was being sarcastic,my mistake.
RSVP
: Boru (08/24, 10:21AM)
“I thought it was evident I was being sarcastic. My mistake.”
Well no Boru, in retrospect it was mine. Two factors were involved:
(1) The commenters, with the exception of Good dog Molly and yourself, were out to “get me” so I was in what you might call a “retaliative posture.” Given our track record, I did notice that your post looked odd but determined to reply at face value, as I did with Good dog and was called “an idiot.” Can you imagine?
(2) In addition to my retaliative posture there is also the matter of “tone” which I often find difficult to detect in computerese. That is an obvious advantage of face-to-face communication but I think it is balanced out by the “communicative distance” involved in sites such as this.
Anyway, I hope you weren’t upset and, if you like, we can return to the sauna together.
By the way check out my new avatar. I did it for Ivan who is deeply, yes deeply, into the Third Reich. I’ll be putting Wynnie back in her place of honour in due course.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
MM
Not a problem.I understand.
I have a lot of respect for a man(an educated man), who can admit when he’s wrong. 😛
WOO HOO…
Montrealman has been arrested.
I knew you were just some tweaked up loser….
http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/12…