Charles Bukowski

If you haven't ever run across his writings before, you really should. Thousands of poems, Hundreds of short stories, and over 60 books. Time magazine once called him "the laureate of American lowlife"  What a description!
He influenced hundreds of poets and writers. "Notes from a dirty old man and Portions from a wine stained notebook"  should be required reading for everyone who is searching for meaning in their lives.
You probably won't find it there but it will give you a perspective outside your comfort zone. 
His writings are about the ordinary lives of average "poor" Americans, he wrote about the act of writing, his rather bad relationships with women, and alcohol, but mostly about everyday life of the poor and the drudgery of work, all the while maintaining a sense of humor. The sense of humor is the important element of all of his writings.
If you haven't guessed by now, Mr. Bukowski is one of my favorite authors. Not so much the content but the style. I also really like the style of  J.Q. Wolf, and yes he's a relative. But his book "Life in the Leatherwoods" is a series of stand alone chapters, not the typical storyline where everything relates and flows from one chapter to the next to tell a cohesive story, with a beginning, middle, and end."Life in the Leatherwoods" is a series of stories that don't necessarily relate to one another chronologically, but the stories of a life's experiences. Each chapter was originally written as articles for a newspaper, and later edited together as a book. I can admire that. Having been there myself.
I guess the moral of this story is just write, someone somewhere will relate to it, look at Bukowski, "the laureate of American Lowlife" always amazed that people wanted to read his stuff. Stuff he wrote! Because he wrote! 
And people read it !   Imagine that!