Henry: This is a world where everybody’s gotta do something. Y’know, somebody laid down this rule that everybody’s gotta do something, they gotta be something. You know, a dentist, a glider pilot, a narc, a janitor, a preacher, all that.

[sighs]

Henry: Sometimes I just get tired of thinking of all the things that I don’t wanna do. All the things that I don’t wanna be. Places I don’t wanna go, like India, like getting my teeth cleaned. Save the whale, all that, I don’t understand that.

Jim: You’re not supposed to think about it. I think the whole trick is, not to think about it.

–from Charles Bukowski, Barfly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1bapq2W8u4

Image credit:Patrick Hoesly
Charles Bukowski was one of the most influential poets of the late 20th Century. In a late interview, he said, "The nine-to-five is one of the greatest atrocities sprung upon mankind. You give your life away to a function that doesn’t interest you. This situation so repelled me that I was driven to drink, starvation, and mad females, simply as an alternative. The ideal, for one like me, of course, is to make it off of your writing, your creativity." Bukowski died on March 9, 1994.