novel

Rant about the Catcher in the Rye and how the phony adult world just keeps fucking with us

~ John Loraine ~ 2 Comments


There are moments when I feel like I’ve exhausted my creative sources. The well has dried up. I don’t know what else to do. I sit and fucking wonder, and nothing will come to me. No ideas. No creativity sparks. I just sit there with my mind blank, blanking like a motherfucker. This must be resistance. That bitch is undoubtedly in the way, keeping me away from my writing. I have to work. I have to get something down. I have to keep going. Fuck resistance, I think, as I open a new document and start typing my useless thoughts in some weird, chaotic order. According to Mr. Pressfield, the only way to beat resistance is to show up every day and do what you have to do regardless of how you feel, how much you produce, and what kind of fucking day of the week it is. One sentence is good. One sentence is much better than nothing. One sentence written down shows you’ve overcome resistance, and you showed up, and you’ve written something, anything. That matters the most; no matter how strong that fucking resistance is, you have to work against it. Once that becomes the habit, you shouldn’t care about anything else in the fucking world. You know what to do, and you show up daily or regularly to work on your craft or whatever you’re working on. Why am I reciting Pressfield? I don’t know. I guess this is the main lesson I’ve learned from reading his book “The War of Art,” which inspired me in so many ways. And secondly, this is the time when I am really struggling with my creative thoughts and my new creative writing, and he’s the only one who provides writers and creative souls with a legit solution. It seems like nothing else or nothing new to write to me about. And the time goes by, one month after another, and there is no new material, and that fucking sets me back. I get used to producing nothing; hence, I produce nothing over time. And I start looking for reasons why I haven’t written and what has been on my way not writing. I am fucking looking for excuses while not trying to do the work.

I woke up at five am this dark and cold Sunday morning last September 2022. I had a plan. I needed to wake up early to spend some alone time on my writing, with no distractions. I’ve been slacking too much lately. I better cut the bullshit out before it becomes another annoying habit of mine. So, here I am. I am back to the old me. I woke up early, and I was ready to ramble. I am ready to write. I remember days when I wasn’t even thinking about writing. I opened my laptop first thing in the morning and started to type, and the words came to me effortlessly. That happened multiple days and weeks in the raw, and at one point, I thought, holy shit, I got it. I am on the holy writing trail again. I’ve cracked the code. My excitement lasted until that habit was put on hold several times, then life kicked in, and I was out of the loop again. And then, I was fucking lost yet again. Then, I struggled with getting my routine back in order, getting my stupid mind back to work, and getting my creative juices flowing again. It is hard to start over too many times. It hasn’t gotten old yet, but it is like fuck; I’ve been here before, and now I have to go through it just one more fucking time. Life isn’t perfect, and it is tough to build a routine or a steady schedule, and shit always gets in the way. I have to provide and be here for my family. That is priority number one for me. Everything else comes second.

I watched the new Elvis movie last night. There it was, the perfect example of how one great, super successful, and world-famous Elvis sacrifices his fucking personal life and his family life for his fucking show and career. He seemed to have all the right intentions to provide for his family, but in the process, the family was not the priority anymore. Not having a normal life. Not having any family nearby to care for him. He was not even able to leave the fucking country for his International tour. He stayed here. He was committed to his act. He was performing and performing fucking well. The show must go on regardless of the misery that went along with it. He’s sold his soul in Vegas. That fucking schedule and even dedication will destroy anyone. There was a chance to take a break, stop for a while, clean up, return to his family, start all over, and live to a hundred years, but it didn’t happen. He didn’t want it. Once he was on the move, it was until the wheels came off. The wheels did come off but sadly, at forty-two years of age, dying in such fucking misery. Even for Elvis, it was a too sad way to go away like that. His priority was his art. The family was not. My priority is my family. Then all the other bullshit in its random fucking order. But I am dedicated, and I am not self-destructive. I am continuing on. I keep up the good fight. And I will be writing regardless of how slow or good or bad. I will be doing this because this is what I love to do, and it makes me feel fucking great.

I have been into J.D. Salinger’s writing a lot in the last five years. I read all of his, at least, popular books. I am sure there is more writing of his somewhere, maybe not all on Amazon. I developed a deep personal connection with “The catcher in the rye.” A true classic novel that never gets old. There are several good reasons why this novel resonated with me and so many others. I think this novel based on its writing style, theme, and rebellious protagonist, could be a great and, in a way, helpful read for all ages. Salinger combined all his Holden stories in this novel and centered them around this young and troubled fellow. Holden is an example of everyone searching for purpose in life during our formative years while searching for himself, going through some shit while voicing his thoughts and philosophy and asking questions about simple things that have a much deeper meaning. Young folks may enjoy this novel because it is fucking interesting to read and learn about this young fellow going through something during the challenging teenage period. This time in life is tricky because as one learns more about life and slowly gets introduced to adulthood, one may dismiss the adult world as phony and stupid and many things adults do as unnecessary and without a good reason. Being young and angry at the world, rebelling against the social norms and structures and institutions, dealing with depression and stress and social issues, indulging in bad habits to escape reality, and so much more. It is a protagonist that most young folks would like to be or are, in a way, already like Holden.

I read the Catcher in my late twenties and learned a lot, even more, when I re-read it several times in my early to mid-thirties. This novel has some hidden passages that shed light on the philosophy of life from a teacher Holden was visiting. The drunk fucking teacher once talking to Holden, in his drunken state, voiced pretty much the central wisdom in that novel, what it is to be an adult and what it takes to be a man. “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for the cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” Holden might not be entirely ready for this wisdom, as any youth exposed to such serious talks might not get it the first time. It usually comes to most younger folks later in life. As it did come to me later in my life. I wish I’d read this novel back in my teens. But I am happy to have discovered it in my late twenties and early thirties. At different points in my life, I found something very true and relatable in the “Catcher in the rye” novel.

Holden’s philosophy of being the “Catcher in the rye” is very interesting when his younger sister asks him what he wants to be in life. Even though it seems like he has no idea what he’s talking about, his response made a lot of sense to me as a father. Realizing how phony the adult world is, Holden wants to prevent children from falling into it. He realizes how great and innocent young people are, looking at and admiring his little sister. Holden wants her to avoid falling into the phony adult life journey he’s going through, as well as all adults are. He wants to protect and catch these little children from falling off the cliff. Salinger’s idea of protecting innocent youth from the mean and unjust adult world is described this way in this novel. It took me a few years to really understand what he meant. When I became a father, I finally got it. It was clear why protecting children from falling off that cliff and into the adult world was crucial for Salinger and Holden.

Once on the playground, I saw my two and half-year-old son playing with other kids. My son ran around among all these other kids, some older, some bigger than him, some more crazy than others, and my little son was up there with them trying to be part of it. He was up there on top of this pretty tall playground construction with all the tubes, pathways, and other shit. I was watching him from the ground. I saw him out there. He was shy and just looked around, watching other kids. Sometimes, he would smile if he saw something they did that was funny to him. Sometimes he imitated what others did as he walked on top of the bridge up there or crawled through the tubes and climbed ladders. I worried he might fall. I worried other kids could push him out. I felt like snatching him out of there and taking him away from all of these kids and that fucking slider. I wanted to hold him close because he might get hurt out there. I felt like my heart was being torn apart. I did not know what to do. But I knew one thing, I loved this child more than anything in the world, and I wanted to protect him and keep him safe and close for as long as possible. I knew I was not able to help him then and there. He was there on his own. I called out his name, but he didn’t see me. I saw him looking down from the top of that structure, smiling, enjoying his moment. He did not see me or hear me, but he was up there with all these kids living his life. I realized then that he will not always be close to or near me as he has been for his first three years of life. As he grows up, he will be more independent, living his life, making decisions, getting into trouble, and making things happen. I will not always be there. I will not always be able to help him. Eventually, he will fall over that “cliff” from his childhood and become an adult. Eventually, his innocent youth will be over. Eventually, he will become a father and probably feel the same about his children. The fact that I would lose him to his own adult life made me feel sad.

For an older reader, the “Catcher in the rye” book can also be a fun read because it will remind them of how it was and how it felt when they were young. Holden’s voice in this book is the voice of youth. That semi-fictional character from the early fifties still sounds relevant and accurate today in the 2020s. Salinger writes the story from Holden’s perspective, but he has himself in his mind. I believe that Salinger and olden are very similar people with similar ideas and attitudes. Salinger combined all these ranges of emotions, themes, and ideas, which are relatable to just about anybody alive. This is why this book never ran out of print, and this is why this book is still popular so many years later and will continue to be relevant because it mentions the questions and issues that are part of being a human. Everyone is closely familiar with, younger or older, regardless. I am now seeing more and more and feeling more and more about the world outside and my three-year-old son and how I wished he always stayed this little and innocent and not fucked with that utter world with its nonsense and bullshit. Salinger felt that himself and described that in this Holden protagonist and a similar character in his other works. I cannot think of a more likable example in the literature that has been so popular and so prominent and appealed to so many people over the decades.

From the moment I read the first few pages of the Catcher book, I felt like, damn, this writing is something. It is written in Holden’s voice as he deals with his life and has all these different experiences, which help the reader see life and its phoniness from a teenager’s perspective. The writing itself is Salinger’s typical stream of consciousness which comes from the first person, from the protagonist. The language that he uses is the language of the youth. It is meant to sound that way. It sounds and reads pretty cool, even after it was cool to talk like that back in the fifties. This simple, casual, and sometimes even dull language is easily accessible and relatable to most people. Writing this way helps to deliver the critical message better. And it did, as we can see over the years. On a personal level, I do relate to Holden a lot. I felt like that many times growing up. I always wanted to be in that pristine, careless state, doing things that I liked to do, knowing that getting older would require shifting priorities and getting educated and getting a job, and getting married and dealing with like like all adults do. I wasn’t necessarily against it, but I knew the fun would be over soon.

When I was in my mid to late twenties, I had accomplished half of the required program that I had on my mind. I got my education, married, and worked jobs, but I wasn’t happy. The more I lived and experienced life, the more I knew how fucking rough and ridiculous it became. I read this book when I was twenty-nine, and at that point in my life, I was on the edge of being lost. I was on the edge of switching my life from a careless young lad to a young adult who had to support his family. I knew that many people my age were pretty damn fucking set up and organized and were much further in life than I was. I was always behind on everything. The book, even by accident, was read with quiet enthusiasm, and it felt very relatable and entertaining. I was about to be fired from one job, and I was working on landing a new job. My wife and I lived with my in-laws, on our last dollar, with no good prospects for the near future. I wanted to become a writer, but I knew I couldn’t just drop out of the professional world because we would die in poverty. I was trying to do my writing in my personal free time while making a paycheck to support my family. As I wasn’t any good or prolific writer, this lifestyle wasn’t a problem to maintain. The problem was that more and more, I felt like I hated the office job, corporate job, or any fucking job. I knew how things usually turn around, and I knew that no matter the excitement, in the beginning, every fucking job would be turned around to be a disappointment. Sooner or later, either by my or my company’s request, this fucking professional journey would end. Whatever I’ve been working on so hard wouldn’t matter to anyone anymore, nor to me. So, the question that I faced so many times was, why in the fuck do I need to suffer like that all the time? Why wasn’t I dedicated to doing what I love to do? Why wasn’t I writing?

There I was, feeling like Holden, unwilling to work, feeling down and experiencing the phony, dull fucking outside world, trying to escape it somehow by running away. Holden is raising the same question. Why bother with the real phony world if you could just run away and live somewhere further and outside of these typical social circles? He knew at an early age that adult life is not easy, and there is a lot of unfairness and bullshit involved, and he refused to be part of it. However immature, his thoughts always focused on little things, which showed how big his inner world was. He cares where the duck goes when it gets cold and the lake in the park freezes. He cares about the young children being fall off the cliff. He feels sorry for the poor nuns on the bus ride and gives them money. He loves his little sister more than life and cares for her. When he spoke about being a catcher in the rye and protecting children, he meant his little sister on his mind. He’s not interested in education, like probably 90% of young people, but he doesn’t seem like a guy who refuses to know things. He’s trying to acquire information, talk to people, and he knows many things as he’s coming along. His rebellious soul is always looking for something, for some purpose, that would come to him later in life.

We all want to live great lives and have everything we need, but we refuse to deal with the consequences and the struggles which make many people miserable. It’s sometimes good, however. This is how one learns about life, what it means, and how to make it all work. This is how wisdom arrives. This is how people learn about their purpose and the important little things which matter the most. And the main thing is that life is a journey, and everyone has their own. Some people are lucky early in that journey, and some later on. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the journey itself. It’s time to enjoy it. It’s time to live now. It’s time to enjoy every little moment because there will be no second times. Prioritize what you love to do and do it. Enjoy it. Enjoy all the great books and writing we have and learn from them. Books will help make one’s life more enjoyable, and the phony world outside will always be that way.

End game

~ John Loraine ~ Leave a comment

“Where is this fucking world going?” He sat by his kitchen nook with his coffee, thinking. “I can’t even remember when it all began to go South. For fuck’s sake, what kind of life this is anyway?” Jack’s face was looking tired. It was tired of too many things. His sleep was poor, drinking too much, too often, writing at weird times and hours or not writing for too long, abandoned by his family, having no or very minimal human interaction, all those things. He’s been getting older by the minute, and he felt like it. It was that face in the mirror every fucking morning that he had to cringe at every time. His soul might have felt younger, but the face showed it all. There were too many messages written on it, too many scars. He could read them all too well. He did it to himself in a way. It was too late to judge now, and who was there to judge him anyway? We all make mistakes in life. For many, life was a mistake. For many, there was no life, just a miserable existence. For some, it was a fucking paradise with the sun shining all the time. He’s had it all and then some.

What does money mean now? What does fame mean now? What do these books on the shelves and beer in the fridge mean now anyhow? He looked around with a depressed look on his aging face. The grey was now showing more in his hair and three-month beard. His eyes were sat deep and looked small and tired. It was impossible to go back in time and fix things. Fuck, if only he could do that! Everything felt great at the time, and nothing was to be changed. Years later, more and more of these revisioning thoughts were coming to him, stressing his hangover brains. Maybe, it was his drinking. There was plenty of that. There is always plenty of drinking and hanging out when things are swell. Things were going well for a long time. He was basking in his fame, and his books were topping all the charts back in the day. He still had his fans, but he didn’t have his passionate soul and youth anymore. That’s life, he thought. That is my motherfucking life.

Sipping his coffee, he stood up and walked up to the window. The picture outside the window was pretty much reflected what he felt like on the inside. It was late January, and it was freezing cold. There was so much snow, and he never bothered to shovel it. His backyard looked like the place where nature goes to die. All these naked, empty, dark trees were standing there motionless. Everything was stripped from its green wealth and beauty. That fucking snow covered everything, hiding the fucked up ugly surface underneath. This was a rough winter. This was a rough life.

He drifted in his memories back to when his family was living there with him. What a cheerful great old days they were! Where did they all go? He saw his wife planting flowers and decorating the backyard. He saw his young son running around, playing with their dog. There were smiles on their faces. There was laughter and joy, and there was his family. There was a feeling of being alive. He was busy working on his next novel all the time, but once he stopped writing, and just like right now, he looked through the window, and he couldn’t take his eyes away. These were his favorite people in the world. They were the people he was supposed to keep around, support, and love till the bitter end. That was the best part of his life passing by him while he took everything for granted and got busy with everything else. Somehow you feel like other responsibilities need more attention, and you keep distancing yourself from the ones who truly love you and need close to you. There are usually more and more responsibilities and other shit that pile up over time, and eventually, you end up old and broken and alone. Sadness took over his mind and soul. The tears rolled up in his old eyes. He felt the heart trembling and the pain inside. Fuck, he said, what a fucking asshole am I? How could I miss out on them so much? Where are they now? I guess you can’t go back in time to change anything. I think this suffering is permanent.

Jack’s wife divorced him some five years ago. There were a lot of problems between the two. Jack’s writing career picked up. He was always in the center of everyone’s attention, and it took the best of him. He was never around, and he was always busy with meetings, writings, appearances, new book projects, movie projects, all that kind of shit. On the one hand, it was great to see him succeed; on the other, he appeared to be more and more away from his wife and family, and eventually, when he was around, he wasn’t sober. The constant glorifying of his works and celebrating his successes led him to drink his ass blind. That was never a plan. That was never supposed to happen.

Jack remembered meeting his wife when he was a young and starving writer. They went to the same school, they had known each other for a long time. It has been one of those moments when you realize, damn, how come I never saw this in you? You are so beautiful and caring, and I cannot stop thinking about you. He offered to marry her right there in the dorm room, and she said yes. Jack smiled again, and his stone face moved awkwardly. These were the good days of his life. These were the best days of his life. He was young and ambitious. He wanted to become a writer, and school was just a distraction. It was just another social norm to follow while establishing his writing career. The college was supposed to cover up for his writing time while working on his debut masterpiece. He finally got it. He wrote that first best-selling novel. Everything started to change around him right the next day after. He barely graduated as he became famous. It felt great. It felt rewarding. They were both happy about his success then. They’ve shared their joy and excitement. Around the same time, his wife got pregnant with their son, and there was another great reason to be happy. Jack was writing on the next book.

If I only knew what that early success would cost me. Jack was desperate. Now, on the edge of his life, he was lonely. He was going to be a successful writer and provide for his family. He’s lived his dream life. But now his family is gone, his success in the past and his writing stalled for an undefined period. Life is a bitch. Life always keeps fucking you over. You have to pick your fucking battles more carefully, pal, he said to himself. Who gives a fuck about you, old man, anymore? His coffee was now cold, but he still felt like drinking it to the end.

It was sunny outside, and it seemed like it was warm. The snow was still on the ground, which would tell you otherwise. These short and cold days were flying away from one after another like the wild birds in the sky. There was no way of stopping the time. There was no way to get back in time and fix past problems. All you have to do is to suffer well, old man. He would call somebody, but he had nobody to talk to. Nobody called him either. It’s been a while since that phone was ringing. This is life. This is a revanche. I am losing this fight, Jack thought. It was not supposed to be this way.

He strolled to the bar and picked a bottle of whiskey. He went up to his writing room. His laptop was sitting on the table next to a pile of papers and glasses scattered all over. He poured himself a drink in one of the glasses and drank it all. It felt calming. He opened his laptop and started to type:

“There he was, on the edge of life, lonely and broken with all those books dusting on the library shelves around the world. Life gave him too many chances. Most of them he wasted. It’s not over until it is over, he thought and drank another one. Living his dream cost him a lot. He paid his price in full. There was nothing left for him in his City of Brotherly Love, not love nor any future promises. Everything came and went, and not all of the memories remained in his hangover mind. Fighting the good fight and drinking the good whiskey was everything left for him to do in his empty house of broken dreams with windows shut dark from the outside world. The writing was a lonely game. Life was a lonely game too. It wasn’t too bad as long as the words kept coming and the lines were written. Not at all.”

About writing

~ John Loraine ~ Leave a comment

I started working on a novel back in late 2016. The novel is about an ordinary guy Johnny who is working as a salesman at a furniture store. He’s young and broke and trying to become somebody in this life. He meets a girl who comes to the store and they go out on a date and he falls in love with her. The problem is that they both are coming from different worlds and they are very different and incompatible people. The middle of the story is being written and the ending is in progress. There has to be a sad ending, I think. Maybe even a tragic one who knows? 

There are a few other projects that I have in the works. Yeh, a few other novel ideas and a TV show are on my long-term writing list. I know that I will eventually get there but all I need is the time and a proper state of my mind. The timing thing is always the problem. There could be a lot of time but no passion for any writing or my mind would be in some weird place. Sometimes life gets in a way and there is no chance to write anything, sometimes I’d try to squeeze a thirty-minute to an hour to sit down and write something. That’s pretty much all you need as a writer. Just sit the fuck down and write.  

I love to write early in the morning. I do find early morning hours the best to write because there is nothing else to do and likely nobody will bother you. A lot of times, I open my laptop and start writing just about anything. It could be the most random writing ever. I rarely know what will come up once the words start filling the page. Then one page fills up there might be two pages and three and so on. Writing is not about the pages. It is about mastership of releasing your thoughts and emotions on the page making the reader live your writing, feel your writing and want to read more. Writing is like a therapy for a writer. When you are all alone, processing your thoughts, building your ideas as they come to you one after another and transforming them into sentences, the magic happens. Eventually, you’ll get something out of your system and you’ll feel great about yourself afterward, even if your writing wasn’t that good. There is also a sense of accomplishment that will give you a lot of energy and will for sure lift your writing sprits up.  

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