/lit/ - Literature

Shakespeare is not exclusively for mid-wits. You claim that his insights are cliche, without making any distinction between the 21st century and Shakespeare’s England. Shakespeare’s insights have become ingrained in our culture, but they certainly were not “cliche” when they were written. Are Galileo’s discoveries banal and cliche because modern children know that the solar system is heliocentric? Shakespeare was such a genius that, centuries after his death, children are still taught his stories and fools know his wisdom to be their own.

I mostly read because I don’t have anything else to do in my free time. It is no wonder why I only began to read once I went through a breakup. I have no social life and I get bored and feel lazy watching TV for hours. Reading makes me feel like I’m not waiting my time and it makes me feel better about myself that watching TV would. “I may be alone again but at least I’m investing in myself by learning these new things.”

TL;DR Cope for Social and Romantic Failure

Why can’t we be nicer to each other

Hegel makes the claim that philosophy shouldn’t be edifying and he goes on to say that philosophy is the path to despair. That it inherently is a confrontation with death. But what’s fascinating is that he says tarrying with this negativity is the real meat of life. It’s really interesting because on both hands the Romans say to either cope with the absurdity or to find peace and ataraxia in the simple, where is Hegel is saying confront the negativity as real negativity, face it, not embrace it, not find jubilance in it but literally Death. Die. Any kind of negativity that you’re thinking of that makes you feel cool or edgy is not the kind of negativity he’s talking about. He’s talking about go after your absolute weakest vulnerable scared places, that’s how I translate it. This is one way Hegel changed my life. It’s not confronting the “bad” or “negative”, It’s really doing the tough crazy work that you really would rather run away from your whole life. He’s not talking about some metaphysical negativity, some abstract evil, he’s talking about the absolutely real negative and evil that is confronting you and to tarry with it. And he says that you won’t succeed, you will die, but what is real and true will progress and the good will always assert itself when the real work is done. I think Heidegger knew this very well and his whole fight against metaphysics is really a fight against the blind eye we have to our own being-in-world, and therefore only Dasein, the being whose being is an issue for it, has the capacity to even approach the question of Being. Too often we cowardly keep evil and goodness, weakness and strength add an arms length so that we never really have to confront what it means for us in our life, Because that confrontation would be so devastating that who we are would be annihilated. What Hegel teaches us is that this is real progress. Seen in this way, egoism is inherently the fear to confront Death, always running away from this confrontation, never really living. And it makes sense, because living is for the tough and brave and those willing to sacrifice for the good, no matter what. Reason allows us to see the series as a series, but the Understanding allows us to progress ahead of it. Reason is active in the world, and Humans have come to reason by themselves for themselves. But this understanding succeeds itself, and this succession, that is also Life, is God coming to know himself through the Human being, not just as Substance (Spinoza), but as Subject, so says Hegel. This may seem like a lot to take in, but there is something really extraordinary about stopping in the middle of a work about the Absolute, and feeling the Absolute, feeling yourself succeed yourself indefinitely, losing all sense of self of sameness or change, infinite or nothing, to see the series, the individual shapes that manifest in various ways, but identifying manifestation itself as itself without a self.

>>13034719
I blame... myself

>tfw nobody understands u

book
quote

>Ulysses
>I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

Is Buddhism the religion of the last man?

>>9467690
Wrong.
The problem is that the word 'art' is thrown around far too easily in this postpostpostpostmodern age where everything and anything is 'art'
What is necessary is a substantiated definition of what art actually is, but of course I doubt there will be a unanimously agreed upon definition (short of some kind of all-powerful entity enforcing it), partly because people will inevitably get insulted and insecure when something they like is suddenly not considered to be art, as under such an inevitably rigourous definition, very little would actually qualify as art (which is for the better, imo
So the next best thing is to have a personal definition of what art is that you are not afraid to adhere by, even if it hurts your self-worth
Not everyone is capable of that, of course, and people will adapt definitions that are convenient to themselves. Though with this again comes a lack of universality and brings us back to everything being considered 'art'
There's no winning, really
Fuck

I've read so many books, but not one has helped me with my depression for any length of time and none of them have altered my view on life fundamentally enough to make it liveable. It feels like I have to kill myself like the entitled, weak brat that I am.

I've decided to read one more short story before I do it. Which one would you recommend?

Let's settle this once and for all:

Katie or Carli

https://www.strawpoll.me/12628400
https://www.strawpoll.me/12628400
https://www.strawpoll.me/12628400

>>9199476
Sort yourself out

>>9192849
Yeah, more than I would have ever expected, it pierces through me, I totally fall apart
I feel so fucking weak and everything that I valued about my loneliness and isolation is fading into the background
help me mane, I love her

Augustine, Aristotle, Aquinas, kinda surprised me

>>9113266
>>9113264

>>8536441
>And after there came so long a train of people, that I never would have believed, that ever death so many had undone

>A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so man

this is good. blake is bad. blake is stupid and gay

>modern art (mainly painting) is shit
>contemporary fine art which replicates classical styles is disingenuous
where do we go from here? is there no more room for innovation? is fine art dead?

>>7044688
What about achieving both aestheticism while capturing something deeper? I believe classical art's purpose was to create beauty in everything, even out of experiences that can be considered sad or gruesome. I believe this was to keep a high morale and discipline within a society, but also to represent a culture of beauty and detail, which reflects the culture's high standards of technicality, beauty, discipline, morale, dignity, and pride.
Modern art is in my opinion used as a tool to expose a culture's degrading morale, which is impressive of course if the artist manages to do so while reaching out to a large audience, but I believe it can have a negative impact on the mentality of a society. Being exposed to ugliness daily in life through all artforms, even architecture, creates a nihilist and post-modernist mentality. This again removes a deeper purpose in life to live where rather materialism is our only motivation. I guess you can blame Capitalism on that, but I believe Capitalism and beauty can co-exist in a society where beauty is highly valued (which increases the demand for art that is beauty).

We all know that Christianity focused on love as a meaning to life and modernism, in my opinion, was a reaction to Christianity. Love and beauty lost therefore its value when modernism replaced religion.

See pic related (40 days in the desert). It provokes a feeling of depression and melancholy, but it also makes beauty out of it through detail, technicality, colouring, etc. It achieves the same goal as modernist/modern art, but makes it into something beautiful rather than something ugly and grotesque.

My absolute favorite depiction of Christ as it shows him suffering in a very human way.

As I Lay Dying

Some Kramskoi love.
My fav painting of J.C.

"45. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.

46.And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Jesus had a hard life ;_

So this just happened

>Browsing /Lit/ at the library and listening to my Handel.
>Girl comes out of toilet in-front of me and looks at me
>I look back ,8/10 a bit chubby but not 1/10
>Some dude comes out of nowhere, she glaces at me again before kissing the shit out of this faggot right in-front of me
>Resentment washes over me

Why is life so hard /lit/