"Blank" by D.H. Lawrence is a piece that Joyce Carol Oates called a "deadly little poem."
"At present lam a blank, and I admit it.
. . . So I am just going to go on being a blank, till some-
thing nudges me from within,
and makes me know I am not blank any longer."
Lawrence has several other poems that seem to reflect the gloominess that may come from not having a good project.
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) "Ever to confess you're bored
means you have noInner Resources." I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
This dark poem pulls moodiness from ones pores, but, wasn't his mother right? Doesn't everyone need a hobby, a project, or perhaps a dog.
Still, there is a long tradition of poetry and it sometimes self-inflicted torment --- and who can deny tradition?